More press hype?

Was the murdered Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer the primery target or was he used as a warning to others?

It is supposed hoodlums lost a lot of money when Parkistan was beaten unexpectedly by Ireland. Would that be sufficient reason to have the coach murdered? For what benefit - punishment or to prevent him disclosing information?

To fix a match isn’t easy. It takes a number of players, both bowlers and batsmen to participate in throwing a match. Why go to all that trouble? With spread and spot betting, match fixing is unnecessary. It’s much easier to fix small aspects of a game: the number of wides bowled in an over, the number of catches dropped. Easier to arrange, and less likely to be detected.

There is a lot of speculation over what Woolmer knew, and what he was going to disclose in his next book. Without casting dispersions on the dead, he had a history of being touched by the shadow of corruption. Woolmer was the coach of South Africa when the team was captained by the late and disgraced Hansie Cronje (he was banned for life in 2000, for his involvement in match fixing - he died in 2002 in a light aircraft plane crash).

Lets assume he was murdered to prevent him disclosing information in a book he was yet to write. The book wouldn’t be published the next day, or the next week or even the next month. Why murder him in the full glare of the ICC Cricket World Cup? It doesn’t make sense. He could have been disposed of after he returned home to South Africa and the hit made to look like a robbery that had gone wrong.

Lets assume he was murdered as punishment and a warning to others. If that was what was intended, the reverse has been achieved. “Match fixing” and all the other scams have been placed in the forefront of attention of the cricketing authorities, the police and the press. If two wides are bowled in an over, that bowler will immediately be under suspicion. The murder has probably frightened off players from participating in spread betting fixes.

The murder is likely not to be associated with match fixing or spread betting. One thing that can be said with confidence, no England player can be accused of corruption - they are so bad, there’s no need for them to throw a match.