No One Ruled Out

26 March 2007



Pakistan’s Cricket Coach Was Likely Murdered

What was to have been a happy occasion for the cricketing world, the Ninth ICC World Cup, has had a shadow cast over it. Bob Woolmer, the coach of Pakistan’s unimpressive side, was found dead in his hotel room after his team was eliminated in the first round. The cause of death is strangulation, and his murder has raised all sorts of question about “spot fixing” in the game.

The police in Jamaica have interviewed the entire Pakistani team, are studying closed circuit TV tapes and are key cards for clues. Deputy Commissioner of the Jamaican police, Mark Shields, said, “Bob was a large man. It would have taken some significant force to subdue him. I have to say at this stage that it looks as if it may be somebody who's somehow linked to him, because clearly he let somebody into his hotel room and it may be that he knew who that person was.”

The question of why anyone would want to kill a cricket coach after his team flamed out of the World Cup points quickly to gamblers. For those outside nations where cricket is popular, it may be hard to believe that betting on cricket even happens, but the fact is cricket has so much going on that little side bets take place all the time. In a five day test, hundreds of balls are bowled in dozens of overs, and several batsmen score hundreds of runs. Spot fixing is when a player alters his play to affect one small aspect of the game without actually costing his side the match.

As an example, Ladbroke’s offered 14 different markets in the recent match between Bangladesh and Bermuda. Which side would win was the obvious one, but one could also bet on which side would win the coin toss. While the UK markets are pretty clean, elsewhere, gamblers can wager on things like the number of wides bowled in an over. For non-cricketers, that’s how many balls are tossed at a batsmen that the umpire believes are unplayable in an over (an over is six balls not counting wides). If the fix is in, a bowler could bowl one, two or three wides and not affect the game in the least, but it could make a gambler thousands.

Mr. Woolmer may not have been killed over gambling at all, but the fact that so many people immediately pointed to the practice of spot fixing suggests otherwise. From all accounts, Mr. Woolmer was the sort who would blow the whistle on anyone indulging in such activities, and not the sort to take some cash to look the other way. Quite likely, it cost him his life.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.


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