The darkest day in Cricket history
The news has just broken that the autopsy on Pakistan Cricket coach, Bob Woolmer confirms his death was due to "asphyxia as a result of manual strangulation". Jamaican police have launched a murder investigation...I feel sick.
Earlier rumours of a broken neck bone (consistent with strangulation) were being dismissed as idle gossip...it appears to be sadly true. Tributes to "one of the nicest men in international sport" have been flowing freely since his death and I really don't know if this tournament ought to continue.
It is true that Cricket is fanatically followed in the Indian sub-continent but a crazed fan? insensed at the loss to Ireland? Killing the team coach? I honestly can´t beleive it.
The other ogre is of course the enourmous amounts of illegal betting going on in the sub-continent's organised crime fraternity. It is more likely that this is an attempt to subvert the tournament in order to claim "all bets off", in which case the tournament ought to be allowed to reach its conclusion.
Whatever it is, a fine man who loved his sport, winning admiration in South Africa where he transformed the post apartheid national Side, and Pakistan (only the second foreign coach to work there) has paid with his life ... no amount of "minute´s silences" and black armbands are going to suffice.
At the very least, the International Cricket Council should immediately rename the World Cup "The Bob Woolmer Memorial Trophy"
Sad as it is to admit...if it is sufficiently provable that the "darker elements" of the South Asian underworld have exerted such an evil influence over the sport, international bans for the nations involved could and should be considered. Did we not ban apartheid South Africa until they put their house in order?
Earlier rumours of a broken neck bone (consistent with strangulation) were being dismissed as idle gossip...it appears to be sadly true. Tributes to "one of the nicest men in international sport" have been flowing freely since his death and I really don't know if this tournament ought to continue.
It is true that Cricket is fanatically followed in the Indian sub-continent but a crazed fan? insensed at the loss to Ireland? Killing the team coach? I honestly can´t beleive it.
The other ogre is of course the enourmous amounts of illegal betting going on in the sub-continent's organised crime fraternity. It is more likely that this is an attempt to subvert the tournament in order to claim "all bets off", in which case the tournament ought to be allowed to reach its conclusion.
Whatever it is, a fine man who loved his sport, winning admiration in South Africa where he transformed the post apartheid national Side, and Pakistan (only the second foreign coach to work there) has paid with his life ... no amount of "minute´s silences" and black armbands are going to suffice.
At the very least, the International Cricket Council should immediately rename the World Cup "The Bob Woolmer Memorial Trophy"
Sad as it is to admit...if it is sufficiently provable that the "darker elements" of the South Asian underworld have exerted such an evil influence over the sport, international bans for the nations involved could and should be considered. Did we not ban apartheid South Africa until they put their house in order?
posted by VKP at 6:16 PM
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