Bob Woolmer possessed all the capabilities required of a cricket coach. He
could impart technical knowledge in a straightforward manner that workaday
players could comprehend and had the patience, coupled with a pleasant
personality, to deal with intractable individuals. Above all, he retained a
schoolboy’s enthusiasm for the game that in recent times was equalled,
perhaps, only by his mentor and friend, Colin Cowdrey, on whom he had
modelled his batting.
The upshot was that Woolmer became the most respected and sought-after coach
in the world, although that was not reflected in the salary he was paid when
in charge of South Africa and Pakistan. One reason why he was determined to
fulfil his abilities as a coach was because he had not done justice to his
unquestioned talent as an all-rounder. A total of 19 Test matches, 1,059
runs and a batting average of 33.1 was a poor return for a batsman who could
cover drive and hook fast bowlers as well and as elegantly as anybody of his
era.
The image in the mind’s eye is of an orthodox right-hander, cap slightly
tilted — he was one of the last top-class batsman to wear a helmet —
persuading the ball to the boundary at cover point through impeccable
timing. He could be vulnerable early in an innings to the outswinger outside
off stump, “a little loose” as Keith Fletcher, his England colleague and
friend, would say. Woolmer’s build, always a little rotund, even the way he
spoke, added to the impression that he was the mirror image of Cowdrey. He,
too, believed passionately in observing the game’s proprieties.
Strangely enough, for such a mild-mannered man, Woolmer was caught up in one
cricketing controversy after another. In 1977, having scored two centuries
that summer against Aus-tralia and with the captaincy of Kent and England
almost certainly his in due course, he decided to join Kerry Packer’s World
Series Cricket. What he gained in pecuniary measure, he lost in terms of his
career. Indeed, he was never to play a major innings for his country again.
He was further ostracised when he took part in the first rebel tour to South
Africa in 1982.
Partly because he played at a time when the best cricketers were not well
rewarded, at least not until World Series Cricket began, and also because he
enjoyed the good things in life without being too extravagant — a smart car,
which was far from the lot of an England cricketer in the mid1970s; better
hotels than he was accustomed to staying in as a county cricketer; decent
restaurants and the best South African chardonnay; the top West End shows
which he always visited when in London — Woolmer was perhaps unduly
influenced by the lure of the Australian dollar and the South African rand.
His parents had wanted to send him to Tonbridge School, where Cowdrey and
other leading Kent cricketers were educated, but could not afford the fees.
That, too, probably influenced his outlook. In addition, Woolmer married at
a young age, having met his South African-born wife, Gill, while playing in
Natal in the early 1970s.
Woolmer never regretted joining Packer or going to South Africa, for which he
was banned from Test cricket for a total of five years and nearly sacked by
Kent. His relationship with Cowdrey, the most influential person within the
club, took some while to be rectified. EW Swanton, the cricket writer who
was virulently opposed to Packer, did not speak to him for a year. In
addition to this, Woolmer’s medium-pace bowling, particularly effective in
limited-overs cricket, was afflicted by a back injury that led to his
retirement from first-class cricket in 1984 and his decision to emigrate to
South Africa. He did not miss England.
So Woolmer embarked on a coaching career that started at Avendale, a club for
nonwhite cricketers in Cape Town, and continued with a season at Kent in
1987 and on to the point at which he won three trophies with Warwickshire in
1994 and was employed by Dr Ali Bacher to coach South Africa. They were a
disciplined, uniform but rather unimaginative side, led by the inscrutable
Hansie Cronje, whom Woolmer never properly understood and who let him down
badly. Woolmer’s instinctive loyalty towards his captains, Inzamam-ul-Haq
included, blinded him to their failings, although, in truth, nobody else in
the game could believe Cronje’s involvement with bookmakers and
match-fixing, either. Woolmer also liked his money, but he liked the game of
cricket even more. Cronje must have known that any mention of his own
illicit activities would result in instant condemnation from the coach and,
further, the relevant authorities would have been informed. This same faith
in human nature, which was a characteristic of Woolmer’s throughout his
life, meant that he could not comprehend any murky dealings or the motives
of any shady individual. Cricket, to him, was a game of purity as fostered
originally by Lord Harris at Canterbury. In addition, he was too willing to
give of his time to hangers-on, if only to reason with them, in addition to
players and journalists. The only individuals in the game he could not take
were those who sniped from the sidelines. The drawback in taking on the
coaching of Pakistan was that there were plenty of these on the
sub-continent, not least, perhaps, because he was not one of them, even
though he was born in Kanpur.
That led to a certain disillusionment. Woolmer had no intention of extending
his three-year contract with the Pakistan Cricket Board beyond June and is
even believed to have stood down the night of his death with Pakistan having
been knocked out of the World Cup. Had he been offered the England job, and
in particular been offered the kind of salary Duncan Fletcher has been
receiving — more than double what he was paid by Pakistan — he would almost
certainly not have been able to resist it, although he had a strong ambition
to set up his own cricket academy and had come up with a possible site near
the Kruger Park in South Africa. He was awaiting news of sponsorship and a
trust fund has been established to ensure it reaches fruition.
As for rumours that he was planning to write an account of his knowledge of
match-fixing, these are wildly speculative and wholly without foundation.
If, as has been claimed, a manuscript was stolen from his hotel room in
Kingston, it would have been only the page proofs of his overview of
coaching and sports science, written by Professor Tim Noakes of the
University of Cape Town, which contain no mention of the subject. Noakes has
reiterated this. So, too, has Michael Cohen, Woolmer’s agent, who read the
statement outside the family’s home in Cape Town on Friday when the fact
that he had been murdered was established. Woolmer had made no mention to
him of wanting to write anything revelatory.
As for the sequel to his autobiography Woolmer on Cricket, published in 2000
and ghost-written by me, this was in its early stages and a publisher had
yet to be found. Woolmer had written about 10,000 words, not one of which
related to match-fix-ing or bookmakers beyond what he had gleaned from the
Cronje affair and which was already in the public domain. It cannot be
stressed strongly enough, given the speculation around the clock, that
Woolmer had no plans to write anything about anything untoward in the game
that he had related to his family. In relation to Cronje, he said recently:
“I kicked myself after writing my autobiography because I should have
mentioned that we had been approached by a bookmaker in Bombay. The reason
why I didn’t? Simply, I considered it but felt that it was not worth a
mention because there was not much to write about. We should all have smelt
a rat.” If Woolmer had a weak spot, it was an inability to detect ill intent
in other people. This, alas, might have cost him his life.
— Bob Woolmer's body will remain in Jamaica until an inquest is
held into his death, police have said. A coroner has ruled that the inquest,
with a jury, will be held “as soon as practical” but a date has yet to be
set.
The Pakistan team, meanwhile, were yesterday preparing to fly home, having
provided Jamaican police with DNA samples. Two of the team’s officials will
stay behind after promising the Woolmer family that they would follow the
ongoing investigations. Detectives revealed yesterday that Mr Woolmer
probably knew his killer — or killers — as there was no sign of forced entry
to his hotel room where he died.
