Bob Woolmer died of natural causes

That Bob Woolmer wasn't murdered isn't good news as such - it's the absence of a very bad element of some bad news. Not cause for rejoicing, but everyone in cricket will appreciate that Woolmer's death has become something more commonplace. Now it's just very, very sad.

Mark Lawson (not the Yorkshire leg-spinner) wrote an interesting article about the media's increasing impatience and lack of need for demonstrable facts. To be fair, the police did say that it was murder. However, anything beyond that was pure supposition - and there was a lot beyond that.

We used to work for a local newspaper and even at that level reporters were very responsible about ensuring that anything published could be proven. We're always astounded by how more mainstream outlets weave great swathes of opinion within a factual report.

As a general rule of thumb, if a reporter says 'probably', 'possibly', 'perhaps' or 'maybe', just ignore anything to which this word relates. Unfortunately, many don't bother with such qualifiers any more, creating a certainty in their output that isn't warranted.

Bob Woolmer was murdered

This makes us feel a bit sick. This is the worst cricket news we can remember.

The post-mortem on Bob Woolmer's body has shown that he was strangled. The police believe that he may have known his killer or killers as he had let them into his hotel room. They also believe that it may have taken more than one person as Bob was a big man.

Our very first thought on hearing that Bob Woolmer had died was that it was murder. It came so soon after Pakistan had been knocked out of the World Cup that it didn't seem like coincidence. Then, immediately after that, a more rational part of our brain kicked in. It said: 'No matter what's at stake, that's unheard of - you're being ridiculous'.

But we weren't being ridiculous. That's what's happened. Whether it proves to be gambling-related, demented fanaticism or tied up in some power struggle that we can't begin to understand, this is horrific news for Bob's family. It is totally, utterly beyond comprehension and cricket will be in a state for decades.

We feel like closing down this site. How can you write about a sport where this can happen?

Inzamam-ul-Haq steps down as Pakistan Test captain

It's all-change for Pakistani cricket. The chairman's resigned, as have the selection committee. Inzy's resigned as the Test captain and most painfully of all, their coach, Bob Woolmer, has died.

There was talk of a breakdown in relations between Inzy and Bob Woolmer in the aftermath of the ball-tampering shenanigans at the Oval last summer, but the two of them always seemed to be quite a team. We don't give any credence to those rumours.

At the press conference announcing his decision to step down as Test captain, Inzy apparently struggled to hold in his emotion. According to the BBC's Alison Mitchell, Inzy recounted how he had told Bob Woolmer that he would discuss his own future with him tomorrow. “Tomorrow” Inzy said, “never came.”

Doubtless Inzy had already made his mind up to step down as captain, but we wonder whether this was based on Bob Woolmer's anticipated absence - it seems as if Woolmer had already resolved to leave his role prior to his demise.

Bob Woolmer dies at 58

This is agonisingly sad. Pakistan's coach, Bob Woolmer, has died at the age of just 58.

We've always liked Bob Woolmer. He was an Englishman with a broad world view. He was born in India, coached South Africa and was now lending his expertise to the Pakistani cause.

He was a progressive man too. You'll be hard-pressed to find an obituary that doesn't mention how he was at the forefront in the use of technology in coaching. Not that he let that go too far. He knew that players weren't robots and that cricket is above all a mind game. Bob Woolmer believed that a happy player was a good player. This seems a fairer reflection of a man who always seemed genial, laid-back and above all, honest.

It could have been sad that his final act as a coach was to oversee a humiliating upset at the hands of Ireland and as a consequence Pakistan's failure in the World Cup. Fortunately, it seems that the cricketing community has a far longer memory than that and that loss has been buried beneath a heap of praise and respect the volume of the Himalayan mountain range. Good. That's the way it should be.

It's hard to know how to end this obituary. I'm going to use a quote from Bob's website, which was a fascinating read, particularly when he first took over Pakistan and was taking stock of the talent at his disposal. We remember him commenting that there seemed to be another six world-class pace bowlers turning up at the nets each day.

Anyway, the quote's a bit hackneyed, but the philosophy's worthy and it sums up Bob Woolmer's approach to coaching.

“Your mind is like a parachute - if it does not open it will not work.”