Pakistan’s cricket coach Bob Woolmer may have been murdered after angering radical Muslims, according to a BBC investigation.

 

The Panorama TV show suggests some players followed the extremist Muslim movement, Tablighi Jamaat.

 

The claims come as preliminary toxicology tests confirm Woolmer was rendered helpless with a powerful poison before being strangled.

 

According to the team’s former media manager, PJ Mir, Woolmer shared his view that members of the squad were more interested in praying than playing.

 

Mr Mir claims it was this pre-occupation with religion that explained their poor World Cup result.

 

“Bob had his reservations that the boys, rather than focusing on the religious aspect, they ought to be focusing more on cricket.

 

“He wasn’t particularly pleased when players were going out to say their prayers in the middle of the game and a substitute was coming in. He was totally against it,” he said.

 

After the team was knocked out, Mr Mir’s comments led to a fatwa being issued against him forcing him to flee Pakistan.

 

He believes Woolmer may have faced the same fate.

 

“If Bob had said what I’d had said, I think there would have been a fatwa on him as well,” Mr Mir said.

PJ Mir (not to be confused with PJM – ed.), Pakistan’s media manager during the World Cup, has blamed the influence of religion in the dressing room for Pakistan’s disastrous performance in the Caribbean.

Speaking to reporters after his appearance at the performance evaluation committee looking into Pakistan’s shambolic display, Mir said, “I could not disclose this fact before, but today I inform the media that most of the members had no focus on cricket. Their fixation was on preaching, affecting the team’s preparations.”

Mir complained that the players devoted more time to praying and preaching than to the game itself. “The boys were up against the most challenging task of proving their skills in the prestigious tournament, but I am sorry to say they had no drive for the game and were much more active in preaching and praying.”

Mir argued that the religious influence had gone “beyond limits. I told the committee that Pakistani players, rather than pray privately, tried to make it a public spectacle.”

Mir added that he told the committee of incidents to highlight his point, highlighting instances where some players, led by former captain Inzamam-ul-Haq, even made it a point to pray in the galley of aircrafts on flights rather than privately in their seats. He said that there is video evidence to prove his point and is offering to pass it onto the PCB to assess the situation further.

Since the England tour last summer, criticism over what is perceived as the team’s overt religiosity has steadily grown. In one of his first public statements after taking over as chairman of the board, Nasim Ashraf called on the team to dampen down ‘public displays of religiosity’ in a TV interview. The remark led to a sharp retort from Inzamam, since when the issue has simmered away under the public radar, a number of PCB officials privately echoing Ashraf’s stance.

In a tense press conference last week, Inzamam dismissed speculation of religion taking priority within the team but Mir’s comments have dragged the issue out into the open once again.

The evaluation committee began its work last week and has interviewed a number of players and officials, including Inzamam and Mushtaq Ahmed, Pakistan’s assistant coach. They are due to meet former chairmen Tauqir Zia and Shaharyar Khan as well and are expected to hand in their report on Pakistan’s debacle within a month.

Time will tell whether religion was also responsible for the loss of the Pakistani coach’s life.

Clue: He’s very strong, has plenty of spirit, has killed before, and is not only not a Fundamentalist Muslim, but is actually despised by them.

The revelation has fuelled mounting speculation that the Pakistan cricket coach’s death was not murder but a tragic accident.

A witness described how the 58-year-old sat alone in the bar of the Hotel Pegasus in Kingston after Pakistan crashed out of the ICC Cricket World Cup and ‘drowned his sorrows’ with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label.

The claim adds considerable weight to suggestions by forensic experts that a tiny bone in Mr Woolmer’s neck could have been broken as a result of a fall rather than by strangulation.

If accidental death is proved, the already tarnished investigation led by former Scotland Yard detective Mark Shields – who publicly declared he was ’100 per cent certain’ Mr Woolmer was strangled – will be exposed to worldwide ridicule.

As four Scotland Yard detectives prepared on Saturday night to fly out to Jamaica to assist in the inquiry, a witness told The Mail on Sunday that Mr Woolmer sat alone on the team bus after the match, looking ‘extremely vexed’. At the hotel, he is said to have begun drinking almost immediately – forsaking his normal solitary glass of wine for the export-strength whisky.

Mr Woolmer’s mood darkened further when most of the Pakistan touring party went off for dinner without him to the home of multi-millionaire car dealer Tariq Malik.

Mr Malik said: “Bob was supposed to come around with everyone for a banquet on Sunday – but that was obviously cancelled after his death.

“There was an open invitation for him the previous evening but the players told me he stayed back at the hotel drinking Scotch. They said he had drunk up to a bottle and was really drowning his sorrows.”

Mr Malik, who moved to Kingston from Pakistan via Kenya 20 years ago, entertained the team at his palatial home for much of the previous week. He said he also met Mr Woolmer twice at the Pegasus.

“The only security I saw at the Pegasus was after Bob’s death,’ said Mr Malik. “Prior to that you could get into the lift and go up to the rooms unchallenged.”

Although he was contacted by Jamaican police five days ago, Mr Malik has yet to be visited by an officer to record what could turn out to be vital evidence.

Police refused to comment on what Mr Woolmer may have drunk before his death until they have studied the results of toxicology and histology tests.

Deputy police chief Mr Shields stunned everyone eight days ago when he announced Mr Woolmer had died from asphyxiation after being throttled in his hotel room on March 17. He spoke of clues, which he refuses to reveal publicly, that convinced him the Pakistan World Cup coach was murdered.

Who would have thought the latest twist in this saga would be a twist of lemon?

And my opinion? If a name is anything to go by, I think we should be keeping our eye on this man.

Police are treating the death of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer as suspicious and cricket officials say they believe he may have

been murdered.

Jamaican police announced today investigations had provided “sufficient information” to continue probing the coach’s death.

Pakistan Cricket Board spokesman Pervez Mir said: “The police suspect that Woolmer may have been murdered.”

Woolmer, 58, was found unconscious in his hotel room in Jamaica on

Sunday morning and was pronounced dead after being transferred to

hospital.

His death came a day after Pakistan suffered a shock

World Cup defeat to Ireland on Saturday, ending its chances of reaching

the next round and sparking widespread anger among cricket fans

Pakistan.

At a late-night media conference at the team’s hotel

in Kingston, Jamaica, deputy commissioner Mark Shields read a brief

statement which said police now had “sufficient information to continue

a full investigation into the death of Mr. Woolmer, which we are now

treating as suspicious.”

The full statement read:

“At the press conference earlier today we reported that the cause of death was inconclusive.

“Having

met with the pathologist, other medical personnel and investigators

there is now sufficient information to continue a full investigation

into the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Woolmer, which we

are now treating as suspicious.

“We have already informed the

Woolmer family of this development and we are also in close contact

with the Pakistan team management, Cricket World Cup and ICC to ensure

all parties are kept informed of the ongoing investigation.”

Earlier, Mr Shields said authorities were waiting for a comprehensive report from doctors.

Pakistan

plays Zimbabwe on Thursday in its last World Cup match. After two

losses, Pakistan has no chance of reaching the second round.

At

a news conference in Kingston, team officials asked the media not to

“try and spread rumors” about Pakistani players being forced to stay in

Jamaica as part of police investigations.

As I mentioned last time, there are many who wanted him dead. After all, what good is an infidel if he can’t even coach your team to victory?

Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer – a former England Test batsman – has died after being found unconscious in his hotel room in the West Indies.

The 58-year-old was discovered in his room at the Pegasus Hotel in Sabina Park on Sunday morning, and was immediately taken to the emergency department of a nearby hospital – but he did not recover.

The team’s media manager Pervez Mir revealed Woolmer suffered from a medical condition but said it was too early to say whether it played a part in his death.

A team spokesman said: “We saw him on Saturday night but having not seen him early on Sunday two of our officers went to his room and with the help of hotel staff entered. He was found unconscious there. It is too early to say whether he has suffered a heart attack. We are awaiting medical reports.”

Dozens of supporters of a youth organisation today chanted slogans and burned effigies of two Pakistani cricketers and two officials of the national team following Pakistan’s loss to Australia this week.

World champions Australia, beat Pakistan with a massive 491 runs in the first cricket Test on Sunday in Perth. Australian bowlers eliminated the Pakistani batting lineup for a total of only 72 runs in their second innings.

About 60 supporters of Shabab-e-Milli – a youth organisation linked with Pakistan’s largest Islamic group, Jamaat-e-Islami – chanted “Death to Inzamam,” referring to Pakistan captain Inzamam-I-Haq, and “Death to Bob Woolmer,” the team’s coach.

After the team’s loss to Ireland, a huge crowd had gathered in front of Pakistani captain Inzamamul Haque‚Äôs Multan residence and chanted slogans of “Death to Woolmer, Death to Inzamam”.

The Bangladesh port city of Chittagong could be in for a shock in the coming days if Jason Gillespie and Matthew Hayden are true to their word.

 

The pair made bold claims of a nude run if the tailender somehow managed to score a double century in the second Test against Bangladesh.

 

He has and Gillespie is now not so sure that it is such a hot idea.

 

“Matty Hayden reckons if I got to 200 he would do a nude lap of the oval,” Gillespie said.

 

“I don’t know if he will actually do it – maybe at the end of the game.

 

“The problem is I was getting a massage last night by Lucy our (team) masseuse, and she mentioned 200. I said, “I am 102″, there is no way I’d get it. I mentioned I would do a nude lap too, if I got there.

 

“I don’t know about that one, being in a Muslim country. I don’t know if it would be perceived right.”

US President George W Bush said this week “I’m a cricket match person” – and he’ll have a chance to show it at a cricket event during his brief upcoming trip to Pakistan.

 

Details were hard to come by, but White House aides said on Friday that Bush was expected to mingle with cricket-playing children and meet of the sport’s professional players during his stop in Pakistan.

 

It was unclear whether the US president, a avid baseball fan, would bat or bowl.

 

“It is planned as an opportunity for him to watch and learn a little bit about it. But, you know, who knows what he’ll do?” said Bush national security adviser Stephen Hadley. “I have not asked him.”

The president himself left no doubt that he’d rather play cricket than see a Bollywood movie, telling reporters on Wednesday that given the choice: “I’m a cricket match person.”

 

“As I understand it, I may have a little chance to learn something about cricket. It’s a great pastime,” he said.