Woolmer match-fixing probe launched
Cricket’s anti-corruption unit probe match-fix claims surrounding coach’s murder.
Published On 2 Apr 2007
Woolmer ‘upset’
Sarfraz Nawaz, the former Pakistan fast bowler, has claimed that Woolmer, who was found strangled in his hotel room just hours after Pakistan’s shock World Cup loss to Ireland on Sunday, was killed because he was writing a book that would expose illegal gambling in cricket.
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Pervez Jamil Mir, the Pakistan team spokesman, said Woolmer was upset that galleys, the original proofs of the book, had disappeared.
Mir said: “Bob told me the proofs had been misplaced and he was very disturbed.
“I don’t know what was in the book, but that was his only copy at the time.”
Email revealed
The British Daily Telegraph newspaper on Saturday published what is said was an email from Woolmer to a Pakistani journalist who asked not to be named, saying he feared for his life.
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It read: “I am going to write a book on my tenure as Pakistan coach. I shall only start after the World Cup.
“I am not a name and shame guy, just the honest facts. Let the punter make up his mind, etc.”
However, the co-author of the planned book insisted that it would not have contained any explosive revelations on match-fixing.
Ivo Tennant, writing in The Times newspaper, wrote: “Rumours that Bob Woolmer was murdered because he was harbouring information on match-fixing or an association with corrupt bookmakers can be dismissed unequivocally.”
Unexpected defeat
Pakistan’s cricketers began heading home from Jamaica on Saturday after forensic experts took DNA samples and fingerprints from the players.”
Naseem Ashraf, the outgoing Pakistan Cricket Board chief who resigned in the wake of the team’s unexpected elimination, said: “There is on suspicion on the Pakistan team.
No arrests have yet been made in connection with the strangling of Woolmer, a former England international who had coached the Pakistan team since 2004.
Jamaican police confirmed on Thursday that the 58-year-old had been murdered.
His body is to remain in Jamaica while an inquest is conducted.
Source: News Agencies