Friday, 23rd March 2007 at 11:55 pm

Bob Woolmer’s mystery killer

Speculation had mounted the moment that Bob Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room, but with the news now official that it wasn’t a natural departure, conjecture has run rife. Strangled in his room, apparently with little sign of a struggle, it’s shaping up as a gripping murder mystery - and if it was all a nicely packaged episode of CSI, the viewing would be great.

But instead it’s an extremely sordid real-life tale that is profoundly disturbing, suggesting that cricket has plummeted to a depth none of us had ever imagined. Just how deep that is, however, depends on who killed Woolmer and why, and thus the investigation takes on an urgency beyond simply finding the man/men responsible for murdering one of cricket’s most devoted servants.

Bookmakers and match-fixing mafia headline the list of popular suspects, but that sits in the context of suggestion that Woolmer knew his attacker(s), and opened his hotel room accordingly. So was it a member of his team? A friend? A colleague? Or did the man who oversaw South Africa at the time of Hansie Cronje’s demise know people from the game’s more shadowy side?

The last theory is getting plenty of attention, but as someone who knew Woolmer, and his simple, unadulterated love of the game, suggesting he was involved with the wrong sorts border on absurd. But as a high-profile figure in sub-continental cricket, he could have unwittingly come into contact with any manner of person involved in the darker reaches of the game.

And with cricket facing an unprecedented moral crisis, unravelling the Woolmer mystery is an urgent task. Some semblance of justice for the Pakistani coach will be important in its own right, certainly, and help his shocked family find a shred of closure. But Woolmer himself placed the welfare of cricket above all but his family, and he above all would want the game’s badly battered image to find some sense of redemption in finding his killers, and attempting to purge the game of the chasm it’s been dragged into.