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Cricket's governors adopted a somewhat haughty tone on learning Jamaican police had concluded Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer was not murdered, but died of natural causes. The death had resulted in the game being unnecessarily tarnished by bizarre theories of match-fixing, said Lord Condon, of the International Cricket Council's
anti-corruption unit. This may have been so. But Lord Condon might ponder why people were so ready to put the worst-possible construction on Woolmer's death, and what that says about the state of cricket.
The bungling of the Jamaica Constabulary Force certainly gave plenty of time for rumours to fly. Almost three months passed between Woolmer's death of heart failure on March 18, after Pakistan's shock first-round World Cup defeat by Ireland, and a definitive verdict. The police brought matters to a fever pitch on March 22, when they announced a pathologist had found Woolmer had been strangled. Because of the implications, it would have been sensible to get a second opinion. But that was done only belatedly, and independent pathologists from Britain, South Africa and Canada discredited the original finding of a broken neck bone, the crucial evidence of murder.
In the interim, two theories gained wide currency. One was that Woolmer had been killed by a deranged fan. Even with the passion for cricket in Pakistan, that seemed extreme. The other, that the coach had been murdered by a "match-fixing mafia" because he was going to name names in a forthcoming autobiography, was not so easily dismissed. Pakistan's improbable loss to Ireland seemed only to add fuel to this theory.
Pakistan, like India, does not have a legal betting market. Yet bets totalling US$1.4 billion were reported to have been placed on a single match at the World Cup, a match in which India was beaten in an upset result by Bangladesh. A significant portion of this money is collected by crime syndicates, giving them a powerful incentive to rig matches - and perhaps even protect their patch by whatever means necessary. Unsurprisingly, India's Mohammad Azharrudin and Pakistan's Salim Malik are among the three national captains who have been banned for life for their involvement in match-fixing.
Malik's penalty, and lesser punishments delivered to other Pakistani players after an inquiry in 1999 by Justice Qayyum, have undoubtedly created a predisposition to think ill of any matter involving Pakistan. But any doubts today are, says the ICC, unfair. "To those who insist that corruption is still widespread ... we have one clear message: put up or shut up," it says.
That confidence is at odds with modern betting, which creates an ever more fertile field for match-fixing. The trend towards extremely precise spread betting, where the spotlight is on a particular batsman or bowler, makes it easier to manipulate an outcome. It is also hard to detect. The ICC, having once conceded that match-fixing was rife, is unwise to now deliver glib assurances about the game's innocence.
Indeed, cricket's credibility remains at stake. Huge advertising and television deals hinge on it. In that respect, the Jamaican police mismanagement has done the game no favours. It has brought cricket's dark side into focus, and revealed a world all too prepared to read the worst into any incident. Whatever the relief implicit in the Woolmer verdict, a deep-seated unease afflicts the game. Confidence will start to return only when all players found guilty of match-fixing are suitably punished.
