Bob Woolmer Murder Reaction

The murder of the Pakistan coach at the Cricket World Cup has led to conspiracy theories and calls for the tournament to stop. Should play be halted in respect?

Whatever happens in the Super Eight phase of the Cricket World Cup, currently being played in the West Indies, is going to be overshadowed by the death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer.

Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room after his side’s shock defeat to tournament minnows Ireland in Jamaica. Police are now treating the death as murder, and conspiracy theories over who may have killed the former England batsman are gathering momentum across the world.

I’m not going to go into those theories. Frankly, it is not my position to – I am not in Jamaica, I have never met any of the parties concerned and the rumour-mongers are not helping the police investigation in any way.

What I am going to go into is the reaction of those who say the World Cup should have been called off as a result of this. It’s a tough one, as a pall has clearly been drawn over the tournament.

This is a call that regularly goes up whenever something tragic happens at a festival or event. If a horse or jockey dies at the Grand National, Melbourne Cup or Kentucky Derby, the race immediately faces calls to be banned. The same goes for music festivals (such as Glastonbury or Roskilde) and concerts if someone dies in the crowd. Should everything be cancelled as a mark of respect to the deceased, or should it be regarded as a tragic accident, with lessons being learned and the event continuing? I would always lean towards the latter, but this case is a little different.

For a start, it’s not an accident, and there are two good comparison points from history. The first of these was on September 5th 1972 at the Munich Olympics when 11 Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the Olympic village.

The difference in this case was that the atrocity was for political, not sporting reasons. Woolmer’s death was directly to do with cricket – he was killed because of his position and personal knowledge of the sport (including its darker fringes), not his nationality.

The other comparison point is the case of Andrés Escobar, a Columbian footballer who was shot dead in Medellin after scoring an own goal during the 1994 (Football) World Cup.

The own goal ensured that Columbia were eliminated from the tournament, although it was never established whether he was killed because of this – large gambling debts allegedly owed to drug lords were also mooted.

The tournament carried on though, in spite of this. Perhaps it shouldn’t have done.

The Woolmer case is arguably worse, but the 2007 Cricket World Cup will be played to its conclusion. I feel it almost has to be, if only to tell those who would commit such crimes that their actions will not derail normal progress. If things are cancelled after a tragedy, or a murder, you can bet that people with vested interests will do their best to create further tragedies and murders to disrupt other events.