Cricket faced the worst scandal in its history last night after Jamaican police announced that Bob Woolmer, the former England Test player and Pakistani coach, was murdered.

Police said that Mr Woolmer, 58, who was found dead in his Kingston hotel room on Sunday morning, had been strangled.

Mark Shields, the Deputy Police Commissioner in Kingston, said there was no sign of forced entry into Mr Woolmer’s hotel bedroom, nor had his possessions been disturbed, increasing speculation that he was killed by people he knew.

Every member of the Pakistani cricket team was questioned and fingerprinted before the announcement. But Mr Shields said that there were no suspects yet and the team would be free to leave Jamaica as scheduled tomorrow.

“It is our belief that those associated with or having access to Mr Woolmer may have vital information that would assist this inquiry,” an associate of Mr Shields said at a press conference in the hotel where Mr Woolmer died. “We appeal to these individuals to come forward now to assist us with our investigations.”

Mr Shields, a former Scotland Yard detective, said it was likely more than one killer was involved in the “particularly horrific” murder. “It would take some force because Bob was a large man and, therefore, it would have taken some significant force to subdue him.” He added: “We do not know how many people there were in the room.”

Mr Woolmer was found “lifeless” by a maid in the bathroom of his room at the Pegasus Kingston hotel, hours after Pakistan had been knocked out of the World Cup by Ireland, one of the greatest upsets in the tournament’s history.

The former England all-rounder, a diabetic, was surrounded by blood, vomit and diarrhoea. Much of the vomit was sprayed high on the walls, suggesting a violent struggle.

Mr Shields had announced on Tuesday that Mr Woolmer’s death was “suspicious”, but that the first postmortem examination had been inconclusive. In a statement that he read aloud last night, after further tests by the same pathologist, Mr Shields said: “His report states that Mr Woolmer’s death was due to asphyxia as a result of manual strangulation. In these circumstances, the matter of Mr Robert Woolmer’s death is now being treated by Jamaica police as a case of murder.”

Mr Shields said that he was in daily contact with Mr Woolmer’s widow, Gill, in South Africa.

“She’s very, very upset and she’s grieving. She has just lost her husband in extraordinary and evil circumstances.”

The Jamaican media have reported that a bone was found to be broken in Mr Woolmer’s neck. Mr Shields said the case was unusual because, unlike most strangulation cases, there were no outward visible sings of throttling. Rumours are rife about Mr Woolmer’s death, particularly after Sarfraz Nawaz, the former Pakistani cricketer, alleged that he had been “bumped off” because he was about to expose a match-fixing scandal.

Now that police have confirmed that the coach was indeed murdered speculation will mount that his death came because he was about to lift the lid on illegal behaviour in the world of cricket, especially after three years as the coach of Pakistan, who have been dogged by allegations of corruption and match-fixing.

Mr Woolmer was about to publish a memoir that many believe contained damning allegations about world cricket. He was South Africa’s coach when Hansie Cronje, the team’s captain, was exposed as a cheat who took £125,000 in 2000 to throw matches.

Malcolm Speed, chief executive of the International Cricket Council (ICC), would not rule out corruption as a motive. “We don’t know whether this is corruption-related at this stage,” he said. “We believe that in the past few years we have been able to keep corruption under control.”

Mr Speed said that Lord Condon the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Condon, was standing by and willing to assist with the inquiry. He has been involved with helping the ICC to fight corruption within the sport.

One senior ICC official told The Times last night: “He told too many people he was writing a book.”

The murder of one of the most respected and admired coaches on the world stage threatens to be the most damaging episode in cricket history.

Last night the ICC said that the World Cup competition would continue.