Bob Woolmer dies - or does he?

Bob Woolmer died of natural causes. And? The tamasha begins all over again – who ought to apologise to whom, should the Pakistan Cricket Board demand one from the Jamaican police or should it be the ICC doing the demanding? Must the hosts be dragged in?

This isn’t the first time the police in any country have goofed up. If anyone needs to be taken to the launderers it is the media. They sensationalised every moment, put everyone they thought could be a suspect on the couch and then ran kangaroo courts.

The cops were working on evidence; the media on conjecture. Had it been a political or social issue that did not involve such hardcore facts, it might have been okay. Not this time.

One might like to reiterate that this in no way means that there was no match-mixing, that the cricketers did not play like idiots or that it has not become a game of who is in favour with which group of the deciding authorities.

I would particularly like to point out the absolutely disgusting way in which some so-called liberals went into overdrive about how the Pakistan team had got so much into Allah-mode that they were concentrating more on religion than running between wickets. Had that been the case, they should have donated all the money they earned as zakat.

Almost all players and others tend to be superstitious. Why does no one blink an eye over those foibles? They wear talismans, their favourite tee-shirts, rings; they pad up on one particular leg first, tie shoe laces on one special foot first, look up at the sky…so if a few want to go down on their knees and get some neck, hands and torso exercises in the bargain, why is it such a bother?

As for the Woolmer episode, the media should stop their disgusting clips of his tightly-wrapped body being taken into an ambulance over and over and over again…and they should shut up and let the Pakistani authorities and the Jamaican police and the ICC sort this out. Then they can step in and tell us the results.

They give us the figures about runs scored and fielding positions; they don’t go out and play the game. So follow the same principle here.