What a disaster, for so many people, was the mistaken report of a Jamaican pathologist in Kingston in March, honest and well-meaning though it no doubt was.

Alas it is too late to undo the damage caused by what was confirmed yesterday as the bungled announcement of the cause of Bob Woolmer's death by the Jamaica police.

Like so many who knew and greatly liked Bob, my immediate reaction when I heard of his death the morning after that traumatic defeat for Pakistan by a triumphant Ireland team was that the combination of stress, over-weight and diabetes had led to a heart-attack. I expressed that view immediately during a hurriedly arranged BBC radio programme and felt a fool when it seemed that had been sadly mistaken. It was murder, they wrote, and some foul business had led to it. I found it very hard to believe but one had to do so given the certainty of the original police verdict. Like many others, I jumped to the conclusion that some sort of betting might have been involved, raising once again the spectre of match-fixing and giving cricket a bad name when in this case there was no reason to do so.

A natural tragedy for the Woolmer family became a calamity too for all those hoping for a happy and successful World Cup, especially the hosts and the ICC organising committee. There has to be sympathy for the WICB that their long-awaited tournament was soured so early in the tournament. It was undoubtedly a contributory factor to the general disillusionment that set in, although that should not be viewed as more than one excuse for the mistakes that were made.

Not the least of the victims, of course, were the Pakistan cricket team, whom Woolmer had coached with such dedication and who became the object of no end of malicious gossip, all of it, it transpires, the result of a faulty report by a pathologist.

It is magnanimous, and also sensible, of Nasim Ashraf, chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, to rule out legal action against the Jamaica Police. "I don't think there will be any legal ramifications from us. We are very glad the matter is over and it is time to move on now. We were unfairly put in the spotlight because of a lot of speculation and I think it is more important to look at the source of all the speculation and ask some questions of them," he said.

For the Pakistan team, already disgraced in cricketing terms for losing to Ireland and going out of the tournament so early, the anxiety that followed must have been intense. We have seen one aspect of that in the pressure felt by Mushtaq Ahmed many weeks after the event at the start of his latest season for Sussex.

Thank goodness that, at last, the suspicion can be cast aside and that Woolmer's great contribution to the game in many countries can be celebrated without equivocation.