Whatever now happens, the 2007 World Cup will be stained by blood that not all the water in the rough rude sea could extinguish. Bob Woolmer’s murder is a tragedy for his family and a profound loss to cricket. For all that, it was right for the ICC to conclude that at least until more facts are known about any cricketing, as opposed to criminal, causes it would be unreasonable suddenly to bring down the curtain on a show that has been planned for years. The financial and political consequences would be vast and it would solve nothing, certainly not at a stage where logic seems to point to murder of the wickedly premeditated rather than the hotly passionate kind.

“This is not the first time that tragedy has visited a sporting event but what we must all do now is to show how resolute the game is by proving ourselves strong enough to move on from what has happened,” Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive, said yesterday.

“The best way to do that is for the teams that remain in the tournament to play out a great ICC Cricket World Cup. By doing that we will demonstrate that cricket cannot be put off by a cowardly criminal act.”

Closer to the bone was the comment of the managing director of the tournament, Chris Dehring, who said: “We have reviewed security arrangements in conjunction with ICC and local agencies and consulted with all the teams and they have told us they are comfortable with those arrangements. On that basis, it is up to the Jamaica Constabulary to get on with its job while our focus now is on some great cricket to come.”

There are ten members of the Anti Corruption and Security Unit, set up in response to the Hansie Cronje affair, and all but one of them, the consultant, Naranjan Virk, are in the West Indies, attending matches in their roles either as investigators or regional security officers. Jeff Rees, the British policeman who succeeded Lord Condon as chief investigator, is in Jamaica and will presumably be closely involved in assisting the police inquiry.

It tells something of the responsibility of the ICC in the area of corruption, however, that the “missing” consultant, Virk, is in Bombay investigating the recorded telephone conversation between Marlon Samuels, and Mukesh Kochar, a “known bookmaker” according to police, during the recent one-day series in India. Truly the sub-continental love affair with one-day cricket since India won the 1983 World Cup final at Lord’s against the odds has reached heights or depths that can only be described as slightly mad. At the election for the new governing body of the Cricket Association of Bengal last July, for example, when Jagmohan Dalmiya was finally evicted from office, the voting of no more than 120 delegates saturated news on all leading national networks throughout the day and three of them actually commissioned exit polls with professional agencies.

India will stage the next World Cup in 2011, out of turn, as the result of promising extra money to the West Indies to ensure the crucial vote that gave the Asian bid a necessary majority over the joint Australia/New Zealand bid. Similar tactics were employed by India to ensure that England did not stage the 1996 World Cup, on that occasion by feathering the nests of the associate member countries. By then the tournament had become much more about making money and justifying huge television deals.

Once again the ICC has been forced to confront the issues of security and corruption that were first formally debated by the organisers of this World Cup at a meeting, ironically in Kingston, Jamaica, as long ago as May 2005. The police chiefs of the nine Caribbean countries staging events were involved in a two-day conference. They were planning a sporting event that is intended to be fun. The unpalatable truth is that, to many millions on the sub-continent, cricket truly is much more than just a game. Rather, literally, it can become a matter of life and death.

For a long time it was not the case but the present ICC administration is anything but complacent about the potential for corruption. In the last annual report it gave warning about the dramatic rise in betting on cricket adding that the potential for corruption was higher than ever. The profile of people betting on cricket has broadened. The incidents covered by micro betting, including session betting, may have little impact on the outcome of a match, but the risk that a player might accept substantial sums to underperform cannot be ignored. Behind Bob Woolmer in the dressing-room last Saturday was a large notice saying “No mobile phones in the dressing-room”. Like freedom itself, the price to cricket is eternal vigilance.