by magpie in the 80's » Sun Mar 25, 2007 2:35 am
BOB Woolmer sent an email announcing he had retired as coach of Pakistan just hours before he was murdered.
Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Nasim Ashraf yesterday revealed one of Woolmer's last acts had been to quit one of world cricket's most frustrating teams.
"I would like to praise my association with the Pakistan team but now I would like to announce my retirement after the World Cup to live the rest of my life in Cape Town," Woolmer wrote.
Ashraf's revelation confirmed earlier reports Woolmer was set to retire and open his own cricket academy in South Africa.
"On the morning after we lost to Ireland, Woolmer had sent me an email (dated March 18), in which, he also expressed his great disappointment over the stunning defeat," Ashraf said.
"But he still believed his boys tried their best and fought till the last to make the most of the match.
"This was one of two emails Woolmer made in his final hours before he was strangled in his bathroom at the Pegasus team hotel.
The other was to wife Gill, in South Africa, at about 8pm last Saturday as he digested Pakistan's shock World Cup defeat to Ireland and, as a consequence, exit from the tournament. Mrs Woolmer said her husband had been really depressed by the defeat but believed what happened was in the past and "one had to move on".
Jamaica police deputy commissioner Mark Shields said he had read the email but there were no suggestions in it Woolmer was about to reveal all on the scourge of match-fixing which may have cost him his life.
"There was nothing in the email which gives me cause for concern," Shields said yesterday.
"It was a normal email between a husband and wife."
Woolmer was in the final stages of writing a book some believe might have contained explosive revelations after three years as Pakistan's coach.
He was no stranger to the issue of match-fixing: In 2000 he was South Africa's coach when then captain Hansie Cronje was exposed for taking bribes to throw matches.
There are growing suspicions Woolmer's death was committed by someone he knew, with the Pakistani players still under suspicion. Each squad member yesterday gave DNA swabs to police, a day after they had been finger-printed and interviewed.
Shields revealed last night Pakistan would today rush two diplomats from its embassy in Washington DC to Jamaica to provide consular representation for its team.
Pakistan has no consular office in the region and its embassy in Washington DC is the nearest.
"We've given whatever information they have asked us about, we've had our interviews and they're going to have our DNA, and we should be allowed to take the first available flight back to Pakistan," team manager Talat Ali said early yesterday.
After the stunning loss to Ireland, Woolmer's effigy was burnt in the streets of Karachi.
That anger has now given way to sorrow, with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, patron of Pakistani cricket, set to posthumously award Woolmer the Star of Distinction, the nation's highest civilian honour.
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