KINGSTON, Jamaica, 22 March 2007 — Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer may have been murdered at the World Cup, a team official said yesterday, as police in Jamaica confirmed they were treating the death as suspicious.

The suggestion is the latest twist in a shocking series of events that have doomed the Pakistan team’s appearance at the tournament, where they were bundled out by part-timers Ireland the day before Woolmer died. “The postmortem into the death of Woolmer was inconclusive,” said Mark Shields, the deputy chief commissioner of the Jamaican police force. “But having met with the pathologists and other medical personnel, there is sufficient information to continue a full investigation into the circumstances of Woolmer’s death, which is now being treated as suspicious,” he said.

“The International Cricket Council, the World Cup officials and all other relevant bodies have been informed of the investigation.” Pakistan Cricket Board spokesman Pervez Mir said investigators were looking at the possibility of foul play. “The police suspect that Woolmer may have been murdered,” Mir said.

He denied that the World Cup team had been ordered to stay in Jamaica until the investigation was completed and added that various rumors over the cause of the death had upset players.

“Obviously ‘suspicious’ could be anything at this moment,” Pakistan team spokesman Pervez Mir said.

“It could be something serious, it could be something not serious. We have a man who is down and we don’t know the reason why.” Shields told reporters that “we have no suspects.”

Mir had said at an earlier new conference that further investigations were being carried out by a toxicologist and a histologist (scientist who examines body tissue).

Woolmer, 58, died in hospital on Sunday after being found unconscious in his hotel room in Kingston.

“We really need to know what is behind it. I think they have to get to the bottom,” former Pakistan captain and legendary all-rounder Imran Khan said in Islamabad after the latest news.

“This just adds to the whole tragedy and especially for Bob’s family,” he said. “I still assume he died of natural causes because he was a diabetic and that is closely associated with heart attacks.”

The Pakistan team was expected to leave for home today. Woolmer’s coffin had been expected to be on the same flight as the team to London, from where it would be transported to South Africa, where he lived with his wife Gill. On Monday, Gill Woolmer had revealed the pressures placed on her husband as coach of cricket-mad Pakistan. “His job, coaching there has been incredibly stressful,” she said.

Former Pakistani cricketer Rameez Raja said yesterday they were dismayed after police in Jamaica said they were treating the death of Woolmer as suspicious. Raja, said he hoped any suspicions would be laid to rest quickly. “It is very unfortunate that the death is being treated as suspicious. It adds another twist to the tale, which is more unfortunate,” Raja told AFP by telephone from the West Indies.

“Let’s hope for the sake of cricket that the matter is solved and they put to rest any suspicion quickly.”