Bob Woolmer cremated in South Africa

CAPE TOWN, May 4: Murdered Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer, whose death shocked the cricket world, was cremated on Friday after a private family ceremony near Cape Town.

Woolmer, 58, was murdered on March 18 in mysterious circumstances shortly after Pakistan was eliminated from the World Cup following a shock defeat by Ireland.

The former England cricketer and South Africa coach was found unconscious in his Jamaica hotel room and pronounced dead at hospital. Police said he was strangled in a crime still shrouded in mystery.

Speculation about his murder, which cast a huge shadow over the World Cup, has included suggestions that he had uncovered a match-fixing scandal, that he was killed by a supporter with a grudge or that he had been the target of a fatwa.

A BBC documentary said Woolmer was poisoned before being strangled.

Deon Benadie, a counsellor at Doves Funeral parlour told that close relatives attended Woolmer's funeral in Observatory, near the family's Pinelands home outside Cape Town.

His family has not decided what to do with his ashes, said Benadie.