What I only guessed to be a possibility on Tuesday night, and repeated as a guess here on Wednesday, has now been officially confirmed:
Jamaican police today confirmed that British-born Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer was murdered.
Next question, as Michael Jennings commented here yesterday, and which he also copied-and-pasted to his own blog: How about Hansie Cronje? Just to remind you of what Michael said:
I have always been very suspicious about the death of former South African captain Hansie Cronje in a plane crash in 2003. When someone as mixed up with gangsters as Cronje dies mysteriously, one tends to think the worst. I wouldn’t have thought that Woolmer was mixed up with gangsters. However, nobody would have believed it of Cronje (who had a reputation for being honest, upstanding, and God-fearing) until he was caught red handed. Secondly, perhaps the situation is that to enter the Pakistan dressing room is to be mixed up with gangsters.
I don’t think that Woolmer was mixed up with gangsters if by that is meant that he was personally involved in match fixing. More probable is that he was about to publish in a book what he had merely observed. But, who knows?
If this was a Poirot murder mystery on TV, the real killer of Woolmer would turn out to be someone entirely unconnected with cricket or with cricket betting, who killed him or who had him killed for entirely different and perhaps purely personal reasons.
But this is not Poirot on TV. This is for real, difficult though many are now finding all this to believe. Today, the entire Pakistan team was questioned and finger-printed by the Jamaican Police.
International cricket matches involving Pakistan now become more than somewhat ridiculous, and are likely to remain so for quite some time, even supposing that cricket’s administrators permit them to continue. It makes no sense at the moment to shut down the entire Cricket World Cup. What purpose would that serve? (At least Pakistan are now out of it.) Nevertheless, Ireland’s ‘surprise’ win against Pakistan on St Patrick’s day now looks more like a gift than an achievement.
England are looking well below what it would take to get very far in this competition, even if they do get past lowly Kenya tomorrow. Yesterday New Zealand thrashed Canada, and Holland were far too good for fellow minnows Scotland. Commentators will want to avoid words like “murdered” when describing such games.
My own personal suspicion is that Woolmer was actually murdered by an enraged Pakistani punter who lost money betting ON Pakistan.
I watched the Ireland vs Pakistan game and there’s no doubt in my mind that Ireland won fair and square. Their efforts by their bowlers certainly reflected a team trying to save the game, and their fielders tried to back them up. I think I even spotted Inzamam actually RUNNING in the field, which is almost unheard of.
But because of their unfortunate history, there’s always going to be doubts like this. But the fact remains that Pakistan are notoriously erratic on the cricket field, and if you catch them on a bad day, then they can lose to anyone, just as they can beat anyone if they are having a good day.
If Woolmer was murdered by an Indo-Pak betting mafia, it is as well to remember that gangsters don’t always do things for logical reasons. They are prey to superstition and gesture at least as much as politicians, and for the same reason – their job is bullying others into line, which requires belief in the manipulablity of human events. (Cf the public ‘contract’ on two sniffer dogs by Malaysian DVD pirates.)
A hypothesis that fits this model is that Woolmer was killed because his team accidentally lost to Ireland, radically cutting down on subcontinental betting at the latter stages of the competition and thus bookies’ profits. In the world of the gangster there can be no accidents, so someone had be blamed and someone had to pay.
Is it inconceivbable that Pakistan threw the game against Ireland? Surely only one or two of their batsmen would have had to be involved -and they did play some awful shots.
I said I would be astonished if Mr Woolmer turned out to have been murdered – and I am astonished.
I was totally wrong. Clearly I have no understanding of the modern world of cricket – at least in relation to Pakistan.
I can guess what my father (a keen follower of cricket) would have said – but such comments are not lawful in Britain.
Let’s not rule anything out. By the way, well done on predicting the budget tax “cut”.
I agree about not ruling anything out. Who would, after this?
BBC Correspondent Agnew was hinting last night on the BBC1 cricket highlights show that after further revelations, the tournament itself could be in jeopardy. What did that mean? Local involvement in this murder perhaps? And hence doubt about the ability of the locals safely to hold the event?
As for “Pakistan” throwing the Ireland game, surely what really happens is that particular players try to alter the result, not necessarily the entire team.
Also, what if different clans of mobsters want different results? The mind boggles. Which is why I will resist such mental boggling and await further solid news.
I got to this story originally by googling my way to foreign (particularly in this case Indian) press stories, which the internet has now made it extremely easy for us all to do. And the internet also makes it extemely easy for us to relay such rumours ahead of our official media, to our own circle of influencees. This changes old school news watching from being ignorantly amazed, to checking out hypotheses one has already been in a position to acquire and do preliminary research on. I know, I’m the last one to notice. But it has been a fascinating experience to have been somewhat ahead of an official news story, simply by paying careful attention to rumours worldwide, and by having known a bit of background. (Like, as Paul Marks’s comment illustrates, knowing that Pakistan cricket is indeed something else again from our own dear game.)
I’ll end this by repeating Michael’s point. Hansie Cronje???
Commentators will want to avoid words like “murdered” when describing such games.
I noticed that cricket commentators, like baseball commentators here in the US, need to keep coming up with alternate words for “defeated” a couple of years ago when a coworker of Pakistani descent was reading online coverage of a game in which, according to the headline, the Bangla Deshi team was “drowned”.
Firstly: Paul Marks – Yours’ or your fathers’ comments are perfectly welcome here in Britain, there are no such things as ‘unlawful’ comments despite what you may have heard.
Secondly, I cannot believe that this sort of thing goes on in Cricket, whats next; waking up to find someones’ carved a horses head on your bat?
I suspect Agnew was implying that with coaches being murdered, the cricket is becoming meaningless and that everyone should all go home. Wouldn’t be cricket to persist with the tournament and all that.
While I see his point – I am continue to blog the cricket but half the time I am wondering why I am bothering – this doesn’t reflect reality. The ICC has been paid huge sums of money for TV rights and sponsorship, and if the tournament were to be called off they would have to give the money (which has likely already been spent) back. That is not going to happen.
Michael.
No, that wasn’t it. What Agnew said was that it didn’t NOW make sense to shut the tournament down, but that things might change. In other words, the way I read it, something else might emerge in the near future, which perhaps Agnew already thinks he knows about but doesn’t want to talk about until it is certain. If things stay as they are now, he thinks the tournament can and should continue.
As always with this thing, I await developments with extreme eagerness.
I say: look for a local angle. Like, I don’t know, local politicians or policemen being bribed by Pakistani betting mobsters to look the other way when … just a wild guess. Or maybe notorious local hoodlums, already linked to local politicians, being involved with the murder. This is Jamaica remember.
At that point, it makes sense to punish the West Indies for totally failing to run the World Cup properly.
For this thing to be cancelled, there surely has to be serious local culpability. Like criminal involvement, or at least the grossest kind of negligence. And as I say, maybe Agnew suspects something along just these lines, and that it may soon emerge into the light of day.
But, as I say, just a guess.
The most interesting news report stroke rumour I can find is this:
“Although Pakistan’s Geo TV has made a startling disclosure about a suspect being already arrested by the Jamaican police in connection with coach Bob Woolmer’s murder, his nationality is yet to be revealed.
However, reports from Jamaica suggest that the person arrested is not a Jamaican, although he has been in touch with Pakistan, Sri Lankan and Indian players too.
He is also known to have been a frequent visitor of Bob Woolmer.”
Which explains why the door wasn’t broken.
That particular site seems to have been right so far about most of this, hours ahead of anything else I can find.
I hadn’t seen this before I made my previous comment.
Guess, Agnew knew about this. And also knows that it makes this all about five times worse. To the point where the tournament itself will soon be in doubt. How? Don’t know. This is, repeat, a guess.
UPDATE: This is also interesting.
Brian, I doubt it is anyone connected with the West Indian local organisers. The host board generally organises all cricket tournaments except for the Champions Trophy and the World Cup. The West Indian board is responsible for all the low level stuff, but for the World Cup the ICC does everything important – scheduling, umpires, rules, etc. The possibility that appalls me is that the arrested person is connected with people deep inside the ICC or the Indian board. If that is so I can see the tournament called off (or it collapsing after sides withdraw), and also i could imagine the boards of Australia, England, New Zealand and perhaps the West Indies and South Africa refusing to play India and Pakistan or perhaps withdrawing from the ICC going forwards. There has been a rift in world cricket between the Asian bloc and the rest for some time. Australia has been much better at bridging it than have England in my mind, but if there really is a split there is no doubt which side Australia would be on. (Although that would be tricky – as Australian cricket’s finances are bolstered by playing India regularly)
I have no idea who this man was and I know nothing about cricket but, from the media reports I have heard thus far, it sounds like it could possibly be a case of kinky sex disaster.
I think I’m with Michael on this. To shut down that big of a financial event would mean the problem is in the product, not the venue. Even if Thaddeus’ story is put forward, how many will really believe it? I would certainly suspect it to be a cover.
Darn. I was hoping I had found a pleasant substitute for baseball, which sport I have long since totally lost faith in the integrity of its product.
Michael and Midwesterner
You’re both right and I was wrong about the local angle. Like I say, a guess, and surely wrong, I now accept. As is confirmed by the news reports I linked to.
What I find fascinating about all this, and at the risk of repeating myself, is how easily our exchange of views (fed by esoteric internet news operations in faraway places where British libel laws don’t piss on everything) enabled us to piece the story together, ahead of the headlines that will surely erupt over the next few days.
Which is: cricket is SERIOUSLY corrupt. This is what will now be emerging in the next few days, and to an unprecedentedly huge audience, with a nice juicey and this time quite definite murder (unlike Cronje’s accident) to talk about. And that really will endanger the entire tournament and a lot else of a cricketing nature besides.
I watched Agnew last night and got it half right: there IS more to come, but not what I guessed. Michael was then able to say: “Well, IF there is more to come and it’s big, then it’s India and the ICC.”
Neither of us would have been able to work this out on our own. Michael doesn’t have the time to be chasing internet rumours. I have had the time, today, but didn’t have enough background knowledge to make full sense of them. Nevertheless, together, we pieced together what I am now almost certain is the true albeit approximate story, and with some ease.
I also agree with Scott that this is an isolated case and could be the work of an enraged fan. If you look at the Pakistani fans reactions(Link) then you can feel that anything is possible.
“I also agree with Scott that this is an isolated case and could be the work of an enraged fan.”
Yes, because I am sure that the late Mr. Woolmer would have invited an enraged fan into his room and then meekly surrendered his life without so much as a trace of a struggle.
I’m telling you this was a kinky gay sex session gone wrong.
While hunting around the net for more info about this, I discovered that this is the third murder in that hotel in 18 months. Unfortunately, becuase of my random surfing, I’ve lost the link. I don’t think there’s any suggestion that it’s some kind of serial killing, or anything like that (as far as I could tell, both of the other murderers have been caught), but it would seem the hotel’s security might not be all it should. I wouldn’t discount the “local angle” just yet.
On the other hand, like Brian, I found a lot of Indian sites, and there seemed to be no shortage of betting syndicates and mafia “families” under suspicion on the subcontinent. The question is, does cricket need to clean up its act, or does Asia? These “families” are operating in countries where betting is illegal. I’ve never heard of Ladbroke’s or William Hill threatening the England coach.
People die in kinky sex sessions and auto-erotic strangulation all the time. Police and other people don’t talk about it much, but they know that it happens and they know what it looks like. If it had genuinely been that, the Jamican police would have shrugged their shoulders and gone on to the next case. This fuss is occurring because it didn’t look like that.
In my opinion Woolmer’s murder is linked with match-fixing mafia and I am not sure if his murderers are going to be caught as happened in the case of Hansie Cronje.
Pakistan’s defeat against Ireland is as dodgy as their humiliation against Bangladesh in a previous world cup. Unfortunately lack of accountability has lead to corruption of worst kind in Cricket history.
It wasn’t a match fixer, or an enraged fan.
He knew his killer or killers.
It wasn’t a professional hit.
The murder was done in a fit of rage.
He had several angry confrontations with players.
One of the players had an “unexplained” busted nose.
Another player, who was first on the scene (aside from the maid) gave a very strange account of what he saw.
Several players changed rooms after the time of the murder, but before the body was discovered.
The CCTV footage is going to show something that Pakistan fans ain’t gonna like. Prepare for Mark Shields to be labelled a Zionist stooge or some such.
Robert is mistaken. There are many comments that are against the statutes in the United Kingdom.
For example, comments that “incite racial hatred”.