It was with a hollow feeling that we left our Indian tour after the terrorist attacks on the United States. But events have shown that New Zealand Cricket did the right thing.

While there were a lot of mixed emotions I think we were all glad that we were going home. As a team we felt quite safe in India but player safety must come first.

We were unable to compete in the semis, and possibly a final, which left a hollow feeling for all of the team.

Conversely, we had gone through the tour unbeaten and everyone had learnt valuable lessons about touring in the sub continent. A few things that I will take away with me from this tour are firstly the way everyone contributed on and off the field towards the team. It made my job easy as captain and allowed everyone to enjoy the tour.

Secondly, while everyone performed at some stage, there were some individuals who really stood out from the rest.

From the batters they were Lou Vincent and Hamish Marshall. Lou tended to hit the same vein of form I saw Mathew Sinclair hit during the end of the Pakistan Test series and again in Sharjah. While Hamish built on his solid starts with quick, light feet to the spinners and played to the situation that was required and rarely failed.

Shane Bond was the stand out bowler in Chennai with his aggression and pace while Chris Drum and Kyle Mills bowled superbly in tandem during the one-day competition in Hyderabad.

Lastly the time we had off the field as a group will be remembered for a lot of things but none more than: the Tuk Tuk race and haka in Chennai; the quiz and charade nights; Marshall for winning all but one of the weekly sport bets and the poetry reading session.

It was just a fantastic trip that was hugely successful in so many ways. I'd just like to thank all those involved especially the management team of Ashley Ross, Ross Dykes and Matt Everest who made everything run so smoothly.

We had moved into the quarter-finals with another comfortable win which saw us with four days off as a team had pulled out of our section and had left us with a bye. This was well received by everyone as we were all starting to feel a little bit tired with the amount of cricket we had played in such a short time.

We used the first night to unwind, relax and enjoy our tournament win over a few quiets as we acknowledged that this would be the last opportunity to share the experience with everyone in the team as individuals would disperse from the group to different places at different times within the next week or so.

Over the next few days there were a couple of fitness session held by Everest and some team practices which turned into only team fielding sessions as the facilities were under prepared again. This allowed more time for the Internet, sun bathing by the pool and a trip to the zoo for those who wanted to go.

The night of the quarter-finals was the day of the terrorists' attack on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon in the US. We watched from our rooms in amazement as we flicked through the 10 channels that were covering the events unfolding before us. The next morning it was all over the papers and was the hot topic on everyone's lips.

However, as soon as we entered the ground nobody talked about it at all until we had won the game and were on the bus and on our way back to the hotel. It was a very professional effort by the team as Chris Nevin with 73 and Drum with four wickets shone brightly in our win over Robin Singh and his merry little men.

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