Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan

Either Mark Shileds has no where close to finding Woolmer’s murderer (if there is such a thing) or he’s has a tendency to be oft misquoted. I earlier linked to the Cricinfo report here in which he has quite clearly said that the police has ruled out the Pakistani players as suspects and were now treating them as witnesses.

Turns out the next day he is being quoted by Guardian as saying this is not the case, in facts he describes PJ Mir’s “claims” to that effect as being “inaccurate”, repeating that “nobody could be ruled out”.

Well Shields, if that is the case, why did you say only 24 hours earlier that “It’s fair to say they are now being treated as witnesses”. Does the ‘they’ in that statement not refer to the same Pakistani players?

Also, several news agencies have reported the results of the first autopsy were not accurate, but Guardian added that he might not have been murdered at all. In that same Guardian report linked to earlier, an unnamed PCB official is quoted as implying that the Jamaican police had acted ‘hastily’ by declaring Woolmer’s death as murder:

“We believe that the autopsy by the pathologist may have had error counts and [the police] are now considering having a second autopsy to confirm the cause of death,” said the official. “The feedback we have got is there are some contradictions in the version of events after Woolmer was found unconscious. But we will get a clearer picture after our manager briefs the board on what took place there”

This has now forced Shileds and co. to order a second autopsy, though he maintained, that the police was confident they first one was accurate and he in particular was ’sure’ that Woolmer was murdered. He conceded, nevertheless, that it was an issue that might be brought up by the defense after they make arrests and trial is held.

Meanwhile, back home, our players have returned, half of them in Karachi, half in Lahore, and obviously, they weren’t exactly welcomed back with open arms. But still, the way its been reported in the media has disappointed me (Cricinfo say the ones at Karachi were “heckled by a crowd of around 100 people” some of which chanted stuff like “go to hell”).

In Lahore things were calmer, but only because the players were let out secretly through the cargo section. One waiting fan there, reportedly said, “We didn’t want to hurt them, we just wanted to vent our frustration”. Yeah right, by shouting out stuff like “go to hell”?

Sad to see that even the tragic events of last three weeks has brought back very little perspective into the psyche of the obsessive cricket fan here. Very, sad indeed.