PAKISTAN: CRICKET: Pakistan's veteran cricketers link Woolmer's murder to betting mafia

Many veteran cricketers in Pakistan suspect the murder of national coach Bob Woolmer at the World Cup in the Caribbean was carried out by someone with connections to an illegal international betting syndicate. The 58-year-old Woolmer died on Sunday (March 18) after he was found unconscious in his Kingston hotel room the morning after his side's shock defeat to Ireland sent them crashing out of the tournament in the first round. On Thursday, Jamaican police launched a murder inquiry, saying the Englishman had been strangled. "I think it has to do, must have to do with this match-fixing situation because he (Woolmer) was writing a book, and you know, there is a rumor that he was about to disclose the names of these people who were involved in this match-fixing scandal," said Fawad Ejaz, a veteran cricketer and the chairman of 'Pakistan Seniors Cricket Board' in southern city of Karachi. "So, I think, they must be forbidding him not to mention their names and may be because of this situation they, those people thought they had no other option but to eliminate Bob," Arif Abbasi, a former chief of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) endorsed Woolmer's murder could be linked to an illegal betting ring but it required firm evidence. "We can talk as much as we want to talk about betting mafia because betting mafia is a reality. It is present in Bombay (Mumbai), it is there in South Africa, in Australia, in West Indies and probably in Pakistan. It is present everywhere. We can talk about betting mafia till next morning. But any conclusion is out of place before solid evidence," he said. Match-fixing has been a blight over the last 15 years and in the late 1990s South Africa captain Hansie Cronje was banned for life for the offence. A match-fixing scandal in Pakistan 12 years ago led to a life ban for former captain Salim Malik and fines for other players. People bet millions of dollars on international cricket matches in the sub-continent, particularly in India and Pakistan.

ITN Source | March 25, 2007

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