As the enraged Pakistani fans burnt his effigy in the streets of Multan, screaming “Death to Bob Woolmer”, even the most maniacal would have been repulsed to know that at that moment, in a slightly shabby Caribbean hotel room, their wishes were being brutally granted.

With shouts for his death 8,000 miles away, Woolmer, the Pakistani cricket coach, was being throttled during a struggle of such violence that, when he finally lay lifeless on the white-tiled bathroom floor, the walls were splattered high and wide with vomit, his body was surrounded by pools of blood and excrement, and a bone in his neck had snapped.

The announcement on Thursday by Jamaican police that Woolmer had been murdered, probably by more than one assailant whom he knew, plunged the world of cricket in a scandal that many believe leads to the lucrative world of Asia’s match-fixing mafia. Last night Jamaican police were focusing closely on a possible match-fixing connection.

The police had first indicated that the Pakistan team, eliminated from the World Cup, were free to return home. But yesterday they were informed that they must provide DNA samples, probably delaying their departure from the Ritz Carlton in Montego Bay.

Talat Ali, the team manager, said: “We’ve given whatever information they have asked us about, we’ve had our interviews and they’re going to have our DNA, and we should be allowed to take the first available flight back to Pakistan.” Police denied a local report that two members of the team would have to stay behind.

On Thursday, over several hours in the Jamaica Pegasus hotel, Kingston, each player was questioned and fingerprinted by police. They were then whisked through a back door and on to a plane for Montego Bay. Some still carried the inky residue from the fingerprint tray on their index fingers.

Pakistan’s defeat by the World Cup debutants Ireland on St Patrick’s Day a week ago, knocking them out of the tournament in one of the greatest shocks in its history, led to the anti-Woolmer protests in Pakistan and presaged by a few hours the fate that was to befall the former England test player in his 12th-floor hotel room. After the discovery of his body, the door to room 374 told its own story. At the end of a long, musty corridor in the 17-storey concrete hotel, the white door was covered in black smudges left by the fingerprint dust of a forensic science team.

Yesterday police were studying closed-circuit television footage of the corridor leading to Woolmer’s room in an attempt to learn who killed him and why. Mark Shields, Deputy Commissioner of the Jamaica police and a former Scotland Yard detective, conceded to The Times that it was proving inconclusive.

Even if an arrest is made soon, Woolmer’s death has had profoundly damaging consequences. The tournament is now a sorry sideshow to a murder mystery worthy of Agatha Christie.

Conspiracy theories flourish, especially as scandal has followed the Pakistan team for years. Many wonder why it took police four days to declare murder after such a brutal attack.

In Pakistan, shame over Saturday night’s demonstrations has replaced the anger among supporters whose devotion to cricket is fanatical. Woolmer’s effigy is no longer burnt. News that he was murdered has instead prompted the building of impromptu shrines and outpourings of grief.

President Musharraf, patron of Pakistani cricket, said that he would posthumously award Woolmer the Star of Distinction, the nation’s highest civilian honour.

Zafar Yaqub, 27, who works in a government audit department in the central city of Multan, said: “When Pakistan lost to Ireland, I wanted to kill both Woolmer and Inzamam [ul-Haq, the team's captain]. Next day, when I heard the news that Woolmer has died, I was buried in shame. I thought I was selfish and I even cried for him.”

Last night, 5,000 miles from Multan, Woolmer’s widow, Gill, remained in the couple’s Cape Town home, curtains drawn, desperate to know the motive for her 58-year-old husband’s murder.

She is in daily phone contact with Mr Shields, who is painstakingly piecing together Woolmer’s final few hours to determine if he was the victim of an enraged fan or, in a far more sinister possibility, was killed because he was about to expose a match-fixing ring.

“It seems difficult to believe at this stage that it was a complete stranger,” Mr Shields said yesterday. At the press conference in the Pegasus hotel on Thursday night he said: “It would take some force, because Bob was a large man and therefore it would have taken some significant force to subdue him and cause strangulation. One or more people could be involved in this murder.”

Police hinted that he might have been poisoned before the assault. “Mr Woolmer ordered room service. Unless he was in some way drugged, it would have been difficult to restrain him,” Mr Shields said. Police were expected to announce today that Woolmer’s body would remain on the island for further tests.

Woolmer was in the final stages of writing a book that many people believed might contain explosive revelations after three years as Pakistan’s coach. He was no stranger to the subject of match-fixing: in 2000 he was South Africa’s coach when Hansie Cronje, the captain, was exposed for taking £125,000 bribes to throw matches.

After Pakistan’s defeat on Saturday, Woolmer had said that he would sleep on questions about his future as coach. Later he quietly conceded to a reporter: “I am deeply hurt and I don’t know how this is going to affect me.” He went to his room at 7pm. About 8pm he ordered room service.

At 3.12am he sent an e-mail to his wife, his last communication to her. Mrs Woolmer said that her husband, who had type 2 diabetes, had said in the message that he was “really depressed” by the defeat but believed that “what happened was in the past and one had to move on”.

Mr Shields said that Woolmer was killed between 8.45pm and 10.45am the following day, when he was discovered by a chambermaid. Near his body lay the blood-testing machine that he used to monitor his diabetes. Mr Shields said that results from an examination of tissue and fluid samples removed from his body had yet to be delivered to police, refusing to be more specific.

The Pakistan team, long one of the most dysfunctional groups in world sport, soon lived up to their reputation. P. J. Mir, the team spokesman, gathered journalists to describe in appallingly graphic detail the scene in Woolmer’s bathroom.

Later he said that he had a “big announcement” to make. It was to announce the retirement of Inzamam. Woolmer was barely mentioned.

In the lobby of the Pegasus yesterday, filled with the flags of the 16 nations that began the tournament, the Ireland and West Indies team milled about, waiting for buses to take them to their match at Sabina Park, Kingston. Police in bullet-proof vests patrolled indoors.

The atmosphere was gloomy and slightly febrile. Woolmer’s death has made cricketers, fans and journalists nervous. When a clap of thunder exploded on Thursday afternoon, one of the tournament’s umpires sitting in the Pegasus rushed outside, fearing a bomb. “Everybody’s jumpy,” he said. “Nobody knows who’s telling the truth.”

Corridors of suspicion

Saturday March 17 Pakistan suffer surprise cricketing defeat at hands of Irish. Pakistani fans burn effigies, chanting “Death to Bob Woolmer”
Saturday, 8.45pm: Last known contact
Sunday, 10.45am: Found unconscious by maid
Sunday March 18, 12.14pm: Pronounced dead at local hospital
Tuesday, March 20: Postmortem proves inconclusive, but police announce death is being treated as suspicious
Wednesday, March 21: Former Pakistani fast bowler Sarfraz Nawaz says, “Woolmer’s death has some connection with the match-fixing mafia.” Pakistan beat Zimbabwe by 93 runs, in a match they dedicate to Woolmer’s memory
Thursday, March 22: The Pakistani team give statements to police, as a Jamaican newspaper alleges that Woolmer had been strangled. The police later confirm the reports
Yesterday: Investigations continue, with police studying hotel CCTV footage

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