Not murdered - reports

Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer:

CRICKET: Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer was not murdered, according to a British police review, the BBC said it understood Saturday.

The BBC said London's Metropolitan Police reached the conclusion after studying work by a pathologist from Britain's Home Office, who flew to Jamaica to probe the British national's death, which sent shockwaves beyond the world of sport during the cricket World Cup.

It would mark an embarrassing U-turn for the Jamaican police, which has seemingly made little headway more than two months into its investigation after launching a murder inquiry days after Woolmer's death.

Earlier, the Daily Mail newspaper said Jamaican detectives were to announce that Woolmer died of natural causes, citing a source close to the inquiry.

The tabloid said they would announce at a press conference next week that they were no longer treating the death as murder and instead now believed he died of heart failure brought on by chronic ill health and possibly diabetes.

The 58-year-old was found dead in his Kingston hotel room on March 18. An autopsy indicated that the former England Test player had been strangled.

The day before his body was found, cricketing powers Pakistan had crashed out of the World Cup in the Caribbean in an shock defeat to minnows Ireland.

Woolmer's widow Gill said Saturday she had heard nothing new from the Jamaican police about his death and would not be making any further comment until she did, the BBC reported.

A myriad of different possible explanations for Woolmer's death have appeared in the world's media.

Following the Metropolitan Police review, Jamaican officers now privately agree that no third party was involved in Woolmer's death, the Daily Mail said in a front-page story.

"Mr Woolmer was not a well man. It is now accepted that he died of natural causes," a source close to the inquiry told the tabloid.

Pervez Mir, Pakistan's media manager during the World Cup, suggested the Pakistan Cricket Board might consider legal action.

"I've been saying all along that Bob had died a natural death and let's not jump the gun, let's wait," he told the BBC.

"The Pakistan team players will be absolutely angry, because of the amount of allegations that were levelled against them, or insinuations, or speculations against the Pakistan team."

Former Pakistan captain Imran Khan blasted the Jamaican police.

"The Pakistan team faced huge embarrassment, having DNA tests done and fingerprinting," he told Britain's Sky News television. It was "the worst publicity a team could have got," Khan added. "I would want Pakistan cricket now to take serious notice of this; you just cannot go

along, this whole drama starts and then in the end you find that there was no reason for all of it.

"They were clutching at straws."

And former Pakistan cricketer Asif Iqbal told the BBC the Jamaican police conducted a "Bollywood kind of investigation."

Iqbal, a team-mate of Woolmer's at English county Kent, added: "Every day there were different stories in the newspaper, every day there was a different way of his being murdered. I think they made a mess of it."

Woolmer's body was eventually cremated on May 4 during a private family service in Cape Town, where he lived.

LONDON, Sunday AFP.