It's Not Cricket

Bob Woolmer died last week. Mr Woolmer will be remembered by many as an excellent international cricketer who gave a lifetime of service to the sport, playing for county and his home country England. His playing days over, he went on to coach international teams, including South Africa and finally Pakistan.
It was as coach to the Pakistan team that Bob was in Jamaica with his team for the Cricket World Cup. Somehow Pakistan lost to rank outsiders Ireland, who have never figured at all on the world cricket stage. A day or two later Mr Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room. After long investigations the Jamaican police declared that he was murdered.
The media were quickly rife with stories of how Mr Woolmer was about to blow the gaff on the cricketing Mafia who made millions on betting on, and fixing, matches.
This may or may not be true. There may be corruption within the sport - it has been proved in the past.
If it is true then the old instinct of cricket being the gentlemen's sport of fair play has disappeared for ever. The taking of a life for the sake of monetary gain over a game of cricket is the final nail in the coffin of the concept of sport for sport's sake.
Sod all you greedy money-makers. Especially those in the sub-continent, where betting is banned, both by law and by religious belief. Why should I respect Islam or, for that matter Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, Buddhism or any other religion that preaches the love of life and then turns its head away from the depravity of the worship of money?
Cricket used to be a sport. Now, along with most other "sports", it is centred on money and greed - the combination of which seems inevitably to lead to violence, suffering and death.