The world’s most dangerous sport!

When it comes to risk and potential danger in sport, most folks take a look at auto racing, horse racing or sky diving for the step into the danger zone. Normally they might be your first choice when it comes to a hazardous pursuit of athletic endeavours.

But this week, if you’re looking for unexpected deaths and mystery, then cricket by Jove, is your sport of choice.

The World Cricket championships are under way at the moment in a number of countries of the Caribbean. Though for this week it would seem that the spotlight is definitely on Jamaica, and if soccer thinks it has a group of death, then they haven’t seen what cricket is offering up this year.

In the space of the last forty eight hours, two people with close ties to the normally sedate and unknown sport have met with untimely demises.

Today, word came out that a former official with the Irish cricket association, passed away while suffering a heart attack. Bob Kerr, the former chairman of the Irish Cricket Union is reported to have succumbed to the heart attack at 4 am in his hotel room.

While his death is no doubt a shock to the cricket community, it was overshadowed a bit by the revelations that the death of the Pakistani coach at the World Championships three days ago, is being investigated as a suspicious death.

Bob Woolmer, was discovered unconscious in his hotel room collapsed on the floor, at the time it was suspected that he had suffered a heart attack But yesterday, Jamaican police announced that the investigation was continuing and that for the moment they were treating his passing as that of a suspicious death.

That bit of speculation has led to a wild ride in the tabloids, broadsheets and blogs, all with their own particular conspiracy theory as to who may wish the cricket coach ill will.

Besides the rather gory details tabulated regarding his death, some of the conspiracy items suggest that Woolmer was about to blow the lid off of the cricket world with reports due out in a book about the apparent fixing of matches on the world circuit.

The untimely deaths and whiff of scandal will no doubt attract some new attention to a sport that many of us have little knowledge about, nor understanding of. Though it would appear that the first rule of cricket might be to make sure you lock your hotel room door and have someone with you at all times.