Caught Out - Shocking Revelations of Corruption in International Cricket. Brian Radford
‘Substitute fielders shall only be permitted in cases of injury, illness, or other wholly acceptable reasons. Wholly acceptable reasons should be limited to extreme circumstances, and should not include what is commonly referred to as a “comfort break”.’
So England’s highly successful ‘revolving door’ strategy was finally officially closed. Yet, curiously, there was no mention of the mints that had indisputably helped to change the condition of the ball, and which many genuine cricket followers considered to be cheating at its worst.
Once Trescothick had retired from international cricket, England’s search for a discreet ‘sucker’ became a confidential priority, but no one, it seemed, had been appointed up to the end of England’s triumphant 2010/11 Ashes series in Australia, where there was no sign of a player slipping something furtively into his mouth and then polishing the ball furiously to enhance the shine.
In some ways ‘spot the sucker’ could be the perfect panacea for drowsy spectators to stay awake in dull moments of Test cricket. But if all Test matches are as riveting as the 2005 series, there never will be a dull moment, and that would be tremendous for the game.
BOB WOOLMER: POISONED OR NATURAL CAUSES?
It was on 23 March 2007 that Lucius Thomas, distinguished head of the Jamaican police force, released the chilling announcement that Bob Woolmer, one of the world’s most popular cricket personalities, had been brutally murdered. Woolmer had died suddenly in his Kingston hotel room six days earlier.
Thomas made his shock public statement after receiving the official post-mortem findings of the Jamaican government pathologist who had reported that the highly respected coach of the Pakistan cricket team had died from asphyxia caused by manual strangulation.
In a calm and measured tone, Thomas told the world: ‘Mr Robert Woolmer’s death is now being treated by the Jamaican police as a case of murder.’ It was such a categorical statement of fact, based wholly on the official autopsy result, that it totally removed any conjecture that Woolmer might have died from natural causes, or any other means.
The police chief immediately appealed for ‘anyone with information that would help us to identify Bob Woolmer’s killer, or killers, to come forward in order that his wife, Gill, and his family, can begin the process of healing’.
A murder in Jamaica was hardly something new for its busy police force to deal with, as serious crime and killings were a constant issue in a country with massive drugs and gang problems. Even so, this was a murder case that went way beyond anything that the Jamaican police had encountered before, as Woolmer was a high-profile visitor who had died in mysterious circumstances just hours after Pakistan had been eliminated from the 2007 Cricket World Cup by Ireland.
Once the Jamaican police chief had so confidently stated that Woolmer was murdered, the floodgates were automatically opened for conspiracy theorists to point accusing fingers in all directions, which included players and officials in the Pakistan tour party, all of whom were on the island for the World Cup.
It was Dr Ere Sheshiah, the government’s chief forensic pathologist, who concluded that Woolmer had been strangled after he had carried out a microscopic examination of the coach’s body at the local mortuary. The highly experienced Dr Sheshiah was in his 18th year in this specialised forensic field, and it would have taken a brave, or ignorant, person to accuse him of not knowing what he was talking about. He was a complete and reliable professional.
Once Dr Sheshiah had produced his official post-mortem report it was generally expected that the police would launch an immediate full-blown murder hunt to ensure that crucial evidence was secured before it was deliberately removed or lost by accident.
A swift and methodical investigation was imperative to apprehend the person or persons responsible but, incredibly, the anticipated course of action slowed up, and Dr Sheshiah’s findings were suddenly challenged and questioned, and the reason for Woolmer’s death curiously developed more twists and turns than an Austrian mountain pass.
Without doubt it was the most macabre mystery ever to befall world cricket, and from the outset the shocked public was desperately hungry for every morsel of information, and millions of amateur detectives in homes and offices and bars around the world instantly set about trying to separate fact from fiction.
Thoughts went back to when Woolmer was last seen in public on Saturday 17 March, as he tried to come to terms with Pakistan losing by three wickets to lowly Ireland at a stunned Sabina Park in Kingston. It was Pakistan’s most humiliating defeat of all time, and Ireland’s first World Cup success. Even allowing for all sorts of unpredictable sports upsets that never cease to baffle fans, this was exceptional on every conceivable level.
Woolmer had not been able to hide his distress as he told reporters: ‘We batted abysmally. Just made mistake after mistake. It just compounded, and eventually we were 40 to 50 runs short. We made some very injudicious shot selections. Mohammad Yousuf, Kamran Akmal and Azhar Mahmood are three, off the top of my head, who played shots that weren’t necessary.
‘That’s sad. Two-and-a-half to three years’ work has gone into this, and to fall out like this is very disappointing. I don’t really know what to say, apart from apologising for the team’s performance.’
Woolmer was then asked about his plans for the future, and he gloomily replied: ‘My contract runs out on June 30 anyway. So I’ll sleep on my future. I’m reluctant to continue in international cricket, purely from a travelling point of view. But I’ll stick to coaching at a different level. I think a decision’s probably been made for me… I’ll talk to the PCB [Pakistan Cricket Board] and see what they want me to do. If they want me to go, I’ll go. If they want me to stay, I’ll stay until June 30th. I’m not going to break my contract, but if the PCB want to get rid of me, that’s their business.’
Plainly distressed and concerned, Woolmer then released an alarming cryptic comment: ‘A number of extenuating circumstances in the past six months have made coaching Pakistan [cricketers] slightly different from normal sides, so those are things that I would have to consider. A lot of those things would have to change if I were to continue with Pakistan.’
At no point did Woolmer offer or try to explain what he meant by ‘extenuating circumstances’ or his puzzling remark ‘coaching Pakistan [is] slightly different from normal sides’. Any number of interpretations could have been made to try to make sense of this apparently coded message, and some cynics inevitably concluded that betting and cheating were what he had in mind.
Whatever Woolmer was bothered about, however, it did seem that he had virtually decided that his Pakistan career was close to coming to an end – either by him resigning and walking away, or being sacked by the PCB. He even teasingly admitted that he would like to do consultancy work in England. ‘I want to continue coaching,’ he stressed. ‘I think it’s time for me to start coaching coaches.’
It was at this point that he took everyone by surprise when he suddenly revealed that he ‘had been writing about the game recently, so I’d like to continue to do that…’
But writing about what? And whom? It was a dramatic disclosure that provoked considerable conjecture in the sad days ahead, and probably will forever, as many well-informed observers were convinced that he was about to expose the full extent of corruption among international cricketers and officials. Woolmer ended what turned out to be his final interview with, in hindsight, the incredibly ironic words: ‘I have not made up my mind. Let me sleep on it…’
Every piece of available evidence indicated that Woolmer never even got to bed that night, let alone fall sleep in his room on the 12th floor of the 17-storey Pegasus Hotel in the heart of Jamaica.
What was known was that Woolmer sent a number of late-night e-mails to his wife, Gill, at home in Cape Town. Several