Stephen Brenkley: Bob, the man for all cricket seasons

Whatever happens now, whoever finally wins a tournament that still stretches into the middle distance, this will be known forever as Woolmer's World Cup. The death last Sunday of one of the game's best coaches and finest men was always bound to cast a long shadow over events, and the wretched confusion surrounding the precise nature of what happened before he was found unconscious in his Kingston hotel room merely spread it further until the shocking announcement at 7.34pm on Friday evening that he had been murdered - "strangled by manual asphyxiation".

As the overs have gone by day after day this past week, each seems to have been accompanied by a fresh, unappetising and uncorroborated twist about the way in which Bob Woolmer's life ended. One of his most favoured maxims - of many - sprang repeatedly to mind. "There are more important things in life than cricket," he would remind an audience baying for explanations and sackings after a defeat.

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He recognised this although cricket had been virtually his entire life. Perhaps because of that, he would have expected the competition to continue along its unmerry way as lurid detail after lurid detail was leaked or invented about what happened on the 12th floor of the Pegasus Hotel in the early hours of last Sunday.

The competition does not end until 28 April. It always seemed an unconscionably long time to find the winner of a sporting competition, and now it will seem interminable. In its way, it can be played as an ongoing tribute to him, but every ball and every stroke will be dogged by the thought of what cricket has become, has, indeed, been allowed to become.

When a man dies before his time and especially when foul play is involved it is expected that his praises are sung to the heavens. It is the simple human response. In Woolmer's case, the reactions this week have gone well beyond that.

Everything that has been written and said about him and his genial, obliging nature has been true. Bobby Woolmer was one of cricket's great men and one of life's nice guys. He was an exceptional cricketer who might have won more than his 19 Test caps for England, a great and innovative coach, always questing for something new, and a man who sought challenge.

But his greatest virtue had nothing to do with his cricketing prowess. It was that he had time for everybody. There was no side to Bobby. In the high-pressure world of big-time cricket, he did not seal himself in a bubble. He wanted to embrace the whole world.

Bob would talk to anybody about cricket, usually at any time. Of course, some people annoyed him for no apparent reason, but suffice to say that he detested arrogance and aloofness. There were some - and they have not all confessed this week - who were sceptical of his coaching methods and his use of videos and computers to spot strengths and weaknesses. The fact is, they worked. His critics could not understand Bob's gentle nature.

There were two perfect examples of Bob the man in the days before his death. We had first met almost 30 years ago when he was playing for Kent and England and I was reporting the county for the local paper. In the past few years we bumped into each other at international matches. It was always a pleasure, always stimulating. Last year on England's tour of Pakistan he insisted I read a book about Islam from a female viewpoint. It would, he said, explain much. It did.

Less than a fortnight ago, he strolled across the lobby of the Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, where I was waiting to speak to a player. He was typically Bob. He never gave less than the impression that he was pleased to see you. We chatted for 10 minutes about Pakistan, their chances in the World Cup and his intention to get out.

"We'd better have a drink to talk about it tonight," he said. As it happened, work intervened. We never did have that drink and I shall regret it forever.

The day after, a reporter from Dublin who had never met Bob before mentioned that he had interviewed him because Ireland and Pakistan were in the same group. The interview had gone on and the reporter was astonished at how generous Woolmer had been with his time and opinions. "He says you'd better go for that drink."

Bobby's death in any sort of circumstances while he still had so much to do and to offer would have taken time to come to terms with. An Academy in Cape Town that would have been a world centre of excellence was high on his list of things to do, but the England job, presumably to become vacant soon, would have interested him and England ought to have been interested in him.

But the fact that he was murdered will resonate down the ages. Too much that has been reported in the past week has been wild speculation and innuendo which were ultimately found by a pathologist perhaps to have some basis in fact. It is inescapable now that this World Cup and cricket will suffer greatly.

Bob would have hated that. He adored the game, he was absorbed by its eternal complexities but entranced by its simple beauty. He probably adored it from the moment his dad placed a small bat into his cot and apparently muttered the words: "I hope this is your life". Never can a parent's wishes for his son have been so fulfilled.

Woolmer was a member of a formidable Kent team, who had started as an all-rounder and became a specialist batsman. He scored three Ashes centuries, one, in 1975, the longest of all. It was always likely then that he would become a coach, so enthralled was he by the minutiae of the game, so helpful was he to others.

A favourite memory of him is nothing to do with his batting or coaching. In a County Championship match at The Oval which Kent were clearly going to lose, Alan Knott was brought on to bowl and Woolmer donned the gauntlets. From the last ball of the over Woolmer stumped Alan Butcher. How they laughed.

Another of Bob's maxims was that: "Yesterday is history, tomorrow's a mystery, get on with present." How I wish there were a tomorrow for him.