His death is still an unsolved mystery. It still puzzles, and it still shocks. Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer passed away a day after his team crashed out of the World Cup in West Indies.
Born in Kanpur, India, Woolmer played 19 Test matches for England, scoring 1059 runs at an average of 33.09. But his international career was affected after he joined Kerry Packer's World Series.
A respected all-rounder at the first class level who played for Kent and South African provinces Natal and Western Province, Woolmer also played 19 Tests and six one-day internationals for England between 1975 and 1981.
He was one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year in 1976, and he scored three Test centuries at an average of 33.09. Woolmer bowled medium-paced swingers and was an elegant right-handed batsman with a free-flowing, fluent flourish.
He almost single-handedly popularised the reverse sweep and his coaching methods required players to think beyond the accepted boundaries of the game. He was one of the first coaches to take a laptop computer into the dressing room. It is a restimony to his foresight that the laptop has become an indispensable part of the dressing room now.
He was Pakistan's coach since 2004. The 58-year-old had been having a tough ride with the Pakistan team, the climax of which was when his team was sent packing from the World Cup by Ireland in the group stages. He was rushed to the University hospital in Jamaica and admitted in emergency care unit after he was found lying on the floor with vomit all around him at 10.45 am on March 19, 2007. He is survived by his wife, Gill, and two sons.
The Jamaican police have closed their investigation into his death after an 11-member inquest jury found insufficient evidence of either murder or a death by natural causes.
Photograph: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: Bob Woolmer, the 'computer coach'
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