I had hoped to be writing about India’s triumph over England in the one-day series this week, due to have been completed Tuesday just passed; India 5-0 up and on course for an unprecedented 7-0 whitewash, then disaster strikes.

On the very day of the fifth one-day international in Cuttack, 950 miles away in Mumbai terrorists unleashed a murderous assault on the heart of India’s cosmopolitan and financial centre.

Nearly 200 men, women and children, of all races, castes and religions, mown down by terrorists, innocent civilians and brave soldiers gunned down, knifed and blown up without mercy by hate-filled thugs showing complete disregard for human life.

Commuters on their way home, waiting to board trains amidst the hustle and bustle at Victoria Terminus, tourists making merry at Café Leopold, diners, guests and staff at the majestic Oberoi Trident and Taj Mahal Palace hotels, slaughtered with not a shred of justification, contrary to what the apologists may tell you.

And, most heinous of all, a Rabbi, his wife and four other Jewish hostages, hunted down, singled out and executed in cold blood for no other reason than the religion in which they believe.

A young boy, the very picture of innocence, orphaned on his second birthday; unjustifiable, unforgivable and completely unconscionable. End. Of.

Yet however painful, however traumatic, just as in New York in 2001, Bali in 2002, Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, life, somehow, goes on.

Mumbaikers still need to travel to work, tourists, businessmen and locals still need restaurants, bars and hotels in which to eat, drink and reside, and sportsmen need to play sport.

That last example, the resumption of top-level sport, is, if not the most important, then definitely the most high-profile example of India moving on, the best possible way of sending out the message that it’s business as usual, that the terrorists have not and will never win.

It is with great relief that we learnt on Wednesday that a full-strength England will return to India to resume their tour, flying out to Abu Dhabi today for a warm-up match before heading back to the sub-continent next week for Tests in Chennai and Mohali.

There is often a delicate balance to be struck at times like these, between weighing up the desire to stick two fingers up to the terrorists and their backers, and the need to pay due deference to the dead and injured, to gauge the public mood as to whether there’s any appetite for sport.

Many times in the past a cessation of competition has been the right response, one recent example being the scrapping of the Ryder Cup in 2001 – due to be held a fortnight after 9/11 – put back by a year, and more recently the decision to postpone the ICC Champions Trophy, slated for Pakistan in September 2008, by 12 months because of the growing political unrest in the country.

But these are few and far between. More often than not, the best course of action, the most fitting tribute to those slain in these outrages, is for the show to go on, as happened at the 1972 Munich Olympics, when 11 Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists after being taken hostage.

Here in England, sport carried on after the 7/7 attacks of 2005 – in which 52 people died – the visiting Australia cricket team carrying on with their tour and contesting one of the most memorable Ashes Series ever to be played.

The best tribute MS, Sachin, Flintoff, KP and friends can pay to the victims, the best possible way they can remember the dead and defy the terrorists, is to pad up, don whites, stroll out to the middle and do what they do best…

Gentlemen, it’s time to play up, play up, and play the game.

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