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Apparently. Um.  When I first heard I couldn’t believe that he had, but once I was convinced I got all melodramatic.  If it’s true I’m very glad, but what a god awful mess.

…drubbing. It ain’t getting any better. Australia will thrash SA tomorrow, and will spank the Sri Lankans at the weekend. And the whole 7 week farce will have been for nothing (except a whole lot of media sun tans and a murder).

England got booed off the pitch after their abysmal defeat to South Africa.

So predictable. So dull. It sums up the whole competition really. Only 3 or 4 exciting matches so far (South Africa v Sri Lanka, England v Sri Lanka, Ireland v Bangladesh, any more?). Teams looking bored, pointless matches, predicatable results. The only excitement has come off the pitch.

What’s really annoyed me is that whenever I’ve turned the TV on I’ve been able to identify the winner of almost every match within 10 minutes - it’s been so uncompetitive. I said some time ago it looked like New Zealand v Australia for the final, and there’s nothing that’s happened since then that makes me change my mind.

England’s appalling performance is just the sludgy icing on a very muddy cake.

Here’s an idle thought…. Spot Fixing is alledgedly prevalent in Pakistani cricket.

How’s this for a theory?

Darrel Hair knew about a particularly large bet (and a related fix) on a specific period of the now infamous 4th Test between England and Pakistan (the Ovalgate test), and deliberately blew the bet by adding the 5 penalty runs for ball tampering; the only way he could stop the fix going ahead, and explaining the huge overreaction from the Pakistani team.

Like I said, just a thought

So. Bob Woolmer’s death was murder, not natural causes. The rumours are going that Pakistan threw their first match against the West Indies as part of a betting fix and that Woolmer was killed in case he blew the whistle.

Here was a man whose love of cricket was apparently boundless, whose record as a player was exemplary and as a coach revolutionary. To end his career coaching a side riddled with politics was bad enough. To end it managing a team that appears to have chosen to fail for financial gain even worse; a side that often had little respect for either him or the game and whose worst excesses were often tacitly supported.

He is quoted as having found managing Pakistan trying - saying after the fiasco at the Oval in 2006 that he was “just trying to get [him]self in a place where [he] can enjoy [his] cricket“. What wasn’t as apparent then as it seems to be now was that match fixing was dogging his career again (he was the coach of South Africa during the infamous Hanse Cronje match fixing scandal).

Pakistan’s 1999 World Cup campaign was dogged with match fixing allegations, during which the current Pakistani captain Inzamam-ul Haq was fined for not assisting the enquiry. Since Woolmer took over as coach in 2004 Pakistan had remained relatively free from allegations of player corruption, but during his tenure Woolmer himself had made proposals to the PCB for ways to resolve match fixing within the side.

To coach a side that chooses to fail must have been unbearable for a man like Woolmer. To die at the hands of those that had made his life so unbearable for the last few years is hideous.

Where to now? How does international cricket cope with these events? ICC Chairman Malcolm Speed has said that the World Cup will continue, despite calls for it to be cancelled. He has to, of course. To cancel the sport’s major event would cause financial chaos; cricket worldwide is funded by TV revenue which isn’t going to be received if the games aren’t played.

But what of Pakistan? Do we turn our backs on them as a cricketing nation? I personally am going to find it hard to enjoy watching matches in which they are taking part for a long time…

Inzamam dedicated their victory over Zimbabwe to the memory of Bob Woolmer. Perhaps your boys could have chosen to win a few more, Inzy? Then maybe just maybe all this shit wouldn’t have happened.

Yesterday was all about the cricket. Sadly it looks like today is all about events off the field:

• Bob Woolmer (the Pakistani manager) dies after being found unconscious this morning in his hotel room after Pakistan’s early and ignominious exit from the World Cup,
• and Freddie is suspended for a match and sacked as vice captain after a late night pedalo incident.

Yesterday was better

Today is the day of the minnow. Ireland knock Pakistan (one of my, and many other people’s, tips for the competition) out of the World Cup and Bangladesh score an emphatic victory over India. Like the Rugby World Cup in a few months it looks like being New Zealand vs Australia for the final. The Kiwis are sure to win the rugby - here’s hoping they take the cricket as well.

It’s begun. 51 games in 47 days. My tips (which, if they’re anything like my Six Nations predictions are worthless, but hey)… Australia (obviously), England, New Zealand and Pakistan. I’d love to think the Windies have a chance (and they played beautifully today), but I think it’ll be one of those 4. Here’s hoping it’s England.

And just to whet your appetite, the fastest ever ODI century from the most dangerous man in cricket, Shahid Afridi: