Suggestions of one or more organised criminal fraternities being responsible for the death of Bob Woolmer are meeting incredulity in a succession of head-on collisions. At the head of the crash are an array of past and present Pakistani cricketing personalities all apparently dumbstruck by the suggestions of a corrupt element within or around the game.

Imran Khan is the latest to purport his bewilderment at the suggestions that Woolmer’s death may have some link to match fixing;

“It makes no sense, this theory about some match-fixing mafia.”

I found Khan’s quote disconcerting for 2 reasons. Primarily because of the absolute obvious sense it would make for an organised criminal gang to murder Woolmer if they suspected him of being in a position to air dirty laundry. Khan’s language bothers me too though, as his use of the word Mafia seems in some way to ask for a bigger leap of imagination than is perhaps necessary to conclude that an organised criminal element had something to gain by killing Woolmer.

We do not yet know who killed Bob Woolmer or indeed why and it seems too early to predict whether we will ever actually find out and still I fear his death, so shocking and sad in its own right, will eventually reveal a dark underbelly of greed and corruption that I for one thought had all but been expelled from the game.

Save for a psychopathically disillusioned fan, no other theory makes sense.