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Pakistan coach Woolmer dies

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A gentle man, a superb coach

Shaharyar Khan pays tribute to Bob Woolmer

The news of Bob Woolmer's murder deeply shocked me and I have written this appreciation in the memory of a dedicated professional and a superb human being. I had met Bob Woolmer cursorily before deciding, as chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, to appoint him national coach. I had based the decision on the advice of Ramiz Raja, then chief executive, and on Bob's outstanding reputation as coach with Warwickshire and South Africa. I had also consulted the ICC, where Woolmer served as High Performance Director of Coaching.

To my pleasant surprise, Woolmer readily agreed and, at a meeting in a London hotel, we quickly agreed to the terms. I recall that at the meeting Woolmer demonstrated immediately his ability to interact sensitively with even the most difficult of players. Shoaib Akhtar had at the time adopted a position of non-cooperation with the PCB and had refused to join the national camp but Woolmer picked up the phone at the hotel and spoke to Shoaib in a most persuasive manner and obtained from him a commitment.

When Bob took over as coach, Pakistan were languishing in the lower levels of both Test and ODI rankings of the ICC tables. There was demoralisation, controversy and disunity among the players. Bob immediately addressed the issues of morale and performance in the team and worked assiduously to reverse these negative trends.

At a time of our lamentable exit from the World Cup, when the entire cricketing establishment is being blamed for Pakistan's failure, it is worth recording that during Woolmer's tenure Pakistan's performance led to the rise in its rankings to second and third spots in the ICC tables. Apart from the obvious improvement in performance, Woolmer was able to instil unity and a fighting spirit in the team that saw Pakistan succeed at home and abroad. Even when Pakistan lost to Australia and England, a fighting spirit was apparent with many a rearguard action and an ability to bounce back from reverses.

Bob Woolmer was not an authoritarian coach. He believed in gentle and sensitive persuasion of the players, spending hours with individuals demonstrating weaknesses of technique and even of attitude. He was an innovative coach and a master of developing coaching techniques to improve performance. He was opposed to dull routine and insisted on advanced fitness levels - an area he found shockingly inadequate when he took over coaching Pakistan.

Woolmer was also a modest and sensitive human being. He decided with his colleagues to live in simple accommodation at the National Academy even though he was entitled to a more luxurious lifestyle. He accepted remuneration at a lower level than he would have found in the international market and his main ambition was to meet the challenge of making Pakistan's talented team a winning outfit. His emoluments were almost the same as for Javed Miandad whom he replaced as coach and about a third of the salary contracted by India with its foreign coach.

There were also several occasions when players, senior and junior, had differences with Bob. He never took umbrage at these outbursts and always went round later to the player to sit and rationally discuss the issue. He was nearly always successful and left the aggrieved player realising that facing disappointment equably was part of the game.

Woolmer also believed that the coach's role ended with the toss of the coin. He maintained that on the field, the captain was fully in charge of strategy and the players. After the game, he would return to the helm to analyse and advise. I recall that sometimes this stand-back role led to problems. For instance, in the vital Bangalore Test against India, the captain was batting and was expecting advice from the coach as to when the crucial declaration should be made. Bob felt that this decision was solely for the captain to make. I know that Inzamam was disappointed and I told Bob that perhaps he had on this occasion taken his non-interference too far.

Woolmer faced two major problems during his tenure. First, though he knew of my full support, he felt that senior officials in the Board were out to undermine his authority. On October 6, the day I resigned, Bob came to me with red eyes and said that he would also resign. I persuaded him not to do so, assuring him that I knew the new chairman would give him his full backing. I told Bob that the patron greatly appreciated his contribution in raising the team's performance and had on several occasions expressed this appreciation and had reiterated the need to support the coach.

Two days before leaving for the Caribbean, Bob came to see me saying he would be prepared to serve Pakistan even after the World Cup but the continuous sniping and harassment from PCB's senior elements would have to stop. He felt that it had been hugely disruptive to preparations and team morale. I again advised Bob to place his trust in the new chairman before making a decision.

The second obstacle that Bob faced was control of the team. Here he found that the captain's spiritual hold on the team prevented his holding full sway with the players, especially the senior members. Bob had some cricketing differences with Inzamam-ul-Haq but these were addressed through dialogue and mutual understanding, even though for days the captain would go into a brooding silence while Bob attempted to overcome the problem through rational discussion.

The more serious issue was that Inzamam was not only the cricketing leader but the spiritual talisman of the team who expected - and was mostly given - total obeisance by his team-mates. I recall Bob telling me, several months before the England tour, that he was severely hampered in addressing team issues because the players were constantly at joint prayers - at lunch, tea and after play. He said he never got a chance to coach the team. I advised him not to interfere in religious matters and to work round the issue. Several weeks later he came to me and said that he had appreciated my advice and added that he had found that praying together several times a day had let to bonding and a welcome team spirit in the team.

I will always remember Bob as a superb innovative coach who dedicated himself to harnessing Pakistan's wayward talent and transforming it into a successful motivated unit. To a large extent he had been successful despite the very real obstacles that he had faced. He was a modest, generous and warm-hearted man who gave his life for Pakistan. I cannot believe that anyone but a raving lunatic would have deliberately caused his death. His murder is a tragedy for Pakistan cricket.

I immensely appreciated Bob Woolmer's dedication as the national coach but beyond his professional abilities, I regarded Bob as a friend and a superb human being. I deeply mourn his death and consider it a national and personal tragedy.

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Are they considering the fact that how was high found lying around his faeces?

How can it be a murder? They can't make him poop after strangulating him. That makes me thing they are wrong about the strangulation just from the broken bone. He could've done that with a fall on an object. I mean if it was a strangulation the initial autopsy would not have been "inconclusive". There would be bruises around his neck.

And how did they say heart attack then?

Maybe they can't tell how he was killed but they can definitely point out how he wasn't killed. Sab bakwaasi log hain wahan basically. Turning the story round and round. Bakwas I tell you, bakwas.
 
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F. Indian player. :D
You think he'll have had time to aim for Woolmer, after the wide choice of targets in the Indian team itself?

Jokes apart, Woolmers murder is a blot on the game and raises many questions that the Pak cricket team can best answer.

Sadly, cricket a game of gentlemen is being played by hooligans,...
while football a game of hooligans is being played by gentlemen.
 
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Sadly, cricket a game of gentlemen is being played by hooligans,...
while football a game of hooligans is being played by gentlemen.

Exactly, About time South Asians started playing Football,
 
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Like a classic whodunit, the case of Pakistan's murdered cricket coach Bob Woolmer remains unsolved, the tension slowly building as police methodically investigate the crime. But at the same time, like the best novels in the murder-mystery genre, the Woolmer case is less compelling for the banal details of the evil act than for what it reveals about the cricket playing world.

Plainly, there is something rotten in the state of a game once deemed so noble that it supposedly embodied the great civilizational virtues by which Britain claimed the right to rule over others.

The known facts of the case are relatively simple: Woolmer was found naked and dead in his hotel room in Jamaica, and the cause of his death turned out to be strangulation — although police are investigating whether he may have been poisoned, as well. The murder occurred during a high-profile event in which the victim was in the international spotlight, and it followed hours after a humiliating defeat for his team. The fact that police believe he would have known his killers (because there was no sign of forced entry or robbery) has narrowed the range of suspects and motives. The fact that police have security camera tapes of people who used the elevator to get on and off Woolmer's hotel room floor on the night of his murder may further narrow the pool of suspects. Still, says Jamaica's Deputy Police Commissioner Mark Shields, a former Scotland Yard detective leading the investigation, no prime suspect has yet to be identified.

Even before police announced that Woolmer's death had been the result of foul play, former Pakistan bowler Sarfraz Nawaz publicly proclaimed not only that Woolmer had been murdered, but also charged that he had been killed in order to protect the ongoing scourge of match-fixing. Sarfraz accused a number of Pakistan players of being involved in betting, and suggested that the team's lackluster performances against the West Indies and Ireland had been more sinister than simply a failure of technique on match day. Pakistani cricket officials angrily rejected such allegations.

Once the cause of death was confirmed, allegations of match-fixing filled the media of much of the cricket world as a number of insiders — former players and coaches — added their voices to suggestions that Woolmer's death was a symptom of corruption at the heart of the game. To be sure, hundreds of millions of dollars are reportedly wagered on cricket matches in South Asia, creating a huge incentive for gambling syndicates to find ways of manipulating outcomes. Although Pakistan's team spokesman Pervez Mir denounced the match-fixing allegations as a distraction from the murder investigation, it's a line of inquiry the Jamaican police are certainly taking seriously, as demonstrated by the fact that the murder investigation is working with the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit of the International Cricket Council.

A major international match-fixing scandal exposed in 2000 had lifted the lid on the seamy underside of a game on which betting syndicates linked to organized crime in South Asia made millions of dollars. And in the wake of Woolmer's death, a number of former players alleged that the 2000 inquiry had merely scratched the surface, and left the game still in the clutches of the betting mafias. Former South Africa captain and Woolmer associate Clive Rice said Woolmer had previously shared with him extensive information about players and officials involved in match-fixing. Rice had "absolutely no doubt" that the Pakistan coach was killed because he knew too much.

Speculation over match-fixing inevitably — if unjustifiably — placed the Pakistan team under a cloud of speculative suspicion, particularly after each member had been interviewed by detectives and had been asked to provide fingerprints and DNA samples. But Shields made clear the Pakistan squad, which left Jamaica last Saturday, are not regarded as suspects in the case. "All of them are witnesses," says Shields. "The reason why it took so much time is that we had to obtain statements from all of them. They were all with Bob in one form or another during the afternoon of the match, and indeed on the way back on the bus, and then of course at the hotel... So, we questioned all of those players and anybody else that was in contact with Bob on Saturday evening to Sunday morning."

The murder investigation is proceeding methodically, and Shields is confident that it will sooner or later discover the guilty party. But whatever the identity and motive of the killer or killers, the Woolmer murder-mystery will leave in its wake an overriding fear that the great game of cricket is being strangled by forces not visible on the pitch.

—With reporting by Siobhan Morrissey/Kingston
 
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Sadly, cricket a game of gentlemen is being played by hooligans,...
while football a game of hooligans is being played by gentlemen.

Sorry but as someone who lives in a country where football is king,I have to say the above statement is utter utter crap! Football (and this is true in most countries that play this game) is played and watched by hooligans! If you want proof take a look at the criminal convictions of footballers.
 
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Indian bookie linked to Woolmer murder
Soumittra S Bose
31 Mar, 2007

NAGPUR: Police in Nagpur, where a betting scandal erupted during the last India-West Indies ODI match, say its officers have a dossier on an Indian bookie, whose name is now surfacing in connection with Bob Woolmer's murder.

Police officers are also hinting that the murder could have been avoided had the ICC heeded its warnings about international bookies getting active in contacting players again.

Police officers, who probed allegations that Windies all-rounder Marlon Samuels was linked to an Indian bookie, said they had shared their findings and apprehensions with ICC's anti-corruption and security wing a month before the World Cup began. No charges were brought against Samuels, suspected to have been in touch with bookies such as Mukesh Kochhar.

It was around that time, Nagpur police started probing KK alias Kamal Kishore Chaddha, a Dubai-based man whose name has now been mentioned by some British publications in connection to Woolmer's murder in a Kingston hotel room following Pakistan's loss to Ireland which led to it crashing out of the World Cup.

Handing over documents and phone-tapping audio data to the ICC team which had visited Nagpur, local police had warned cricket's governing body about the coming alive of a network of global bookies under Dawood's umbrella, run by operatives like Kochhar and KK.

"Drastic action by ICC could have sent a strong message to players and officials, who would not have dared to indulge in any malpractice. The bookies would have suffered a setback," said Nagpur deputy commissioner of police Amitesh Kumar. ICC is yet to complete that probe.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...murder/RssArticleShow/articleshow/1835688.cms
 
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Pakistan coach's pillow 'was soaked in blood'

By Jon Pierik in Antigua
April 02, 2007 01:00am
Article from: Font size: + -
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A BLOOD-STAINED pillow found in murdered Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer's hotel room has become a key part of evidence.

The pillow, which is soaked with blood at both ends, has reportedly been sent for forensic testing.

A Kingston pathologist has concluded that the former England batsman was strangled, most likely with a towel or pillow. This theory arose because there were no marks on his neck.

Investigators are also still studying the contents of Woolmer's laptop and emails as well as hotel video surveillance footage.

The new evidence comes as witnesses told how Woolmer drank a whole bottle of scotch on the night he died, drowning his sorrows after Pakistan's shock World Cup defeat to Ireland.

One onlooker described how Woolmer, 58, sat alone in the bar of the Hotel Pegasus in Kingston with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label.

The revelation has fuelled mounting speculation that his death was not murder but a tragic accident.

Forensic experts have said a tiny bone in Woolmer's neck could have been broken as a result of a fall rather than by strangulation.

Jamaica's deputy police commissioner Mark Shields has previously said there were no signs of a struggle in Woolmer's room, although there was vomit on the floor and walls in the bathroom where he died.

If accidental death is proved, it will be a major embarrassment for former Scotland Yard detective Mr Shields, who has previously declared he was "100 per cent certain" Woolmer was strangled.

Last night, as four Scotland Yard personnel - a senior detective from the homicide and serious crime unit, two detectives and a specialist scene-of-crime officer - prepared to fly from London to assist in the inquiry, another witness said Woolmer sat alone on the team bus after the match, looking "extremely vexed".

Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq yesterday rubbished suggestions his team was guilty of match-fixing in the World Cup.

There have been allegations the Pakistanis threw the match against Ireland and Woolmer - who was South Africa's coach during Hansie Cronje's disgraced reign - had found out.

Woolmer's widow Gill has called for a quick conclusion to the investigation.

"I just hope this thing can be done so we can find out who committed this terrible act," she said.

His body will remain in Jamaica until an inquest has been completed.

Austrailia News.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21485071-2,00.html
 
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I think this issue needs to be resolved ASAP. It is stupid to carry on investigations ,when a crime has not been committed. I feel if there was a doubt, then the matter should have been referred for a second or even a third opinion. If his death is subsequently declared an accident, I strongly feel that Pakistan should sue the pants off of the stupid doctor who caused the whole team extreme anguish, caused immense damage to the reputation of the country, and sent hundreds of people on a wild goose chase resulting in loss of time and money.
Regards
Araz
 
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Woolmer poisoned, then strangled: Toxicology report
[ 15 Apr, 2007 1305hrs ISTPTI ]
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LONDON/KINGSTON: The long-awaited toxicology report in Bob Woolmer's murder case has indicated that the Pakistan cricket coach was poisoned before being strangled in his hotel room.

According to a source close to the Jamaican police, the investigators probing the mysterious death believe Woolmer was poisoned to incapacitate him before murdering him in his Jamaica Pegasus hotel room around one month ago, London daily 'The Sunday Times' reported.

But Mark Shields, the Deputy Police Commissioner leading the inquiry, refused to confirm poison was found and said the toxicology samples and post-mortem report would be sent to Britain for further analysis.

"If he was manually strangled and asphyxiated, why didn't he put up a fight? I've always said there was a possibility he was incapacitated by something else. If I tell you they (the results) have come back and we are conducting further tests, I suggest you draw your own conclusions," he said at a press conference in Kingston on Saturday.

Shields described the toxicology results as "encouraging" but said the probe could take a "long haul".

"There are three possibilities. One is that someone could give themselves up. Two, there could be a massive breakthrough or, three, we are here for the long haul.

"At the moment we are certainly in category three. We would love to move to one but I think that is unlikely at this stage," Shield said.

He quashed the speculation that it was the drug aconite, which causes asphyxia.

The tests, which are preliminary, also showed relatively low levels of alcohol in Woolmer's blood, contradicting reports he had downed a bottle of scotch before he died.

"There was evidence he was drinking, but no evidence that he was drunk," the source was quoted as saying by 'The Sunday Times'.

Shields said they were still reviewing CCTV footage recovered from the hotel and there was some progress in the analysis of these materials, which were sent to Scotland Yard in the United Kingdom.

"I now have some of the results which are excellent and give a clearer picture of what took place," Shields said.

But he said it did not bring them any closer to identifying who entered Woolmer's room on the fateful night.

"It's too early to speak specifically about a suspect," he said.

Shields also said that around 30 officers were working full time on the case, for which over 100 witness statements have been gathered.

Many of these statements will be put under the microscope from April 23 when the inquest into the death begins in Kingston.

Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room after Pakistan's humiliating defeat at the hands of minnows Ireland at the World Cup.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...led_Toxicology_report/articleshow/1911944.cms
 
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lol they are all liarsss. No forensic expert can be this much of an idiot to keep changing the story all the time.
 
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Have heard that they'll release the investigation report after the World Cup, and they let the Pakistani team leave, so as not to make it an international issue.

The investigators from Pakistan have gone to study the evidence, and Interpol has been invited to investigate it independently, also to ensure certain players will be extradited, if investigation confirms their participaton.

Honestly, I think it was murder by one of our players, only.
Not premeditated, but rather on impulse.
Here goes, See no matter how thin, security was present. If a fan was going from door to door for autographs, he'd be stopped dead on his tracks. Who wouldn't raise suspicion but the men in green.
Secondly, you may call the hotel, the operator will connect you to the room, but will not disclose the room number, hence the person knew the room number.
Thirdly, for an outsider, Woolmer would have worn at-least a tee / shorts right. He'd only open his door in a 'towel' for people he's close to.

I doubt it that anyone preplanned it, they had a verbal fight which went out of control, in the midst of a heated argument, it became physical.

Anyways, let's see what the actual results are.
 
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