The England cricket squad will head home from India today, with no certainty that the players will return for the two-Test series due to begin on December 11.

While Hugh Morris, the managing director of England Cricket, said that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) remains committed to the Tests as long as the safety of the party can be guaranteed, there is little relish among the players for going back.

Kevin Pietersen, the captain, and his colleagues were in subdued mood yesterday as the appalling scenes from Bombay continued to resonate. At the start of the tour last month they spent six nights in the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, one of the terrorists’ targets. They were due to use it again as their base for the second Test at the Brabourne Stadium, less than a mile away, from December 19.

“The situation is very fluid but it is better to reevaluate things in London,” Morris said. “To get back to a home environment will be a good thing. It has been an awful tragedy and the players felt close to it.

“They were in that hotel, maybe in the same rooms as those who were taken, and perhaps ate in the same restaurants only a couple of weeks ago. This feels very real to them. They are disturbed at what has happened, as we all are.”

The England Performance squad, including Monty Panesar, Michael Vaughan and Andrew Strauss, will also fly back from India today, while the inaugural Champions League tournament, scheduled to start on Wednesday next week, has been postponed. Cricket Australia said that its teams would not travel for the event and Middlesex, the English representatives, cancelled their flight to Bombay.

They had been due to check in to the Taj Mahal Palace last night.

Morris had hoped to confirm by early evening yesterday that the senior squad would leave India, having earlier persuaded the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to scrap the remaining two one-day internationals, in Guwahati and Delhi. But the announcement was delayed until almost 10pm local time after Lalit Modi, the BCCI vicepresident, said that England were staying for the Test matches and had agreed to switch the second game to a southern city. Possible fear among players of becoming pawns in the discussions between the boards over the Indian Premier League and other issues were removed when Morris addressed them at an hour-long meeting.

Morris emphasised that England have not pulled out of the Test series. Doing so without advice of a security threat could potentially leave the ECB liable to a compensation claim from India running into millions of pounds.

While travel advice from the Foreign Office remains no more cautionary than before the tragedy for any city bar Bombay, players are bound to be worried about the targeting of Westerners and their own high profile.

A tight time-frame means that Morris and his colleagues have only a matter of days to decide whether to return to India. The single three-day warm-up fixture, in Baroda, should begin a week today. Morris did not rule out going straight into the first Test without a practice match, but that would make a mockery of the contest, with some of the players out of first-class action since August.

Sean Morris, the chief executive of the Professional Cricketers’ Association, welcomed the decision to return. “It makes sense to be in England at this stage,” he said. “The best place for them is back with their families, who are probably worried about them.”

India teams have also stayed at the Taj Mahal Palace and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the captain, said: “As cricketers we are entertainers, but we should not be entertaining at a time like this. It is up to England to make their decisions but I can understand their concerns. After the game on Wednesday [in Cuttack] I watched . . . on television through the night for all but one hour. We are all shocked at what has happened.”

Hugh Morris spent most of yesterday in separate meetings with Reg Dickason, the security adviser who travels with the team, N. Srinivasan, the BCCI secretary, and the players and management. In between, he spoke to Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, who is on business in Colombia, and David Collier, the chief executive, who is in Los Angeles, as well as Sean Morris, who was taking the views of Pietersen and senior players.

“What came out is that players are keen to play international cricket,” Hugh Morris said. “There is a significant issue affecting everybody in India and around the world at the moment, and the players are aware of that.

“The Test matches are in place as it stands and at the moment our plan is to come back. If our security report says it is safe and secure to do so, that is what we will do.”