Bob Woolmer

After retiring from first-class cricket in 1984, he emigrated to South Africa, where he coached cricket and hockey at high schools. He also became involved in the Avendale Cricket Club in Athlone, Cape Town. He preferred to join a 'coloured' club rather than a 'white' one in apartheid South Africa. He was an inspiration to Avendale and was instrumental in assisting the club to grow and be successful. Because of him, there is still an annual programme for a talented Avendale cricketer to spend a summer at Lord Wandsworth College in Hampshire.[7] Woolmer was the coach when South Africa won the 1998 ICC KnockOut Trophy, and in the same year the country won gold in the 1998 Commonwealth Games.

He returned to England in 1987 to coach the second eleven at Kent.[6] He went on to coach the Warwickshire County Cricket Club in 1991, the side winning the Natwest Trophy in 1993, and three out of four trophies contested the next year. He continued his success by leading Warwickshire to Natwest and County Championship success in 1995, before taking on the Post of South African National Coach.

Woolmer is thought to be the only person to have witnessed both Brian Lara's innings of 501 not out against Durham in 1994 and Hanif Mohammad's 499 in Karachi in 1958.[8]

Woolmer was known for his progressive coaching techniques. He is credited with having made the reverse sweep a more popular shot for batsmen in the 1990s,[9][10] as well as being one of the first to use computer analysis, and trying to adapt the knowledge of goalkeepers to wicketkeepers in cricket.[11] He later attracted attention at the 1999 World Cup by communicating with his captain Hansie Cronje with an earpiece during matches. The practice was later banned.

He was appointed coach of South Africa in 1994. Initially his team performed poorly, losing all six matches on his first outing in Pakistan.[11] However, in the next five years, South Africa won most of their Test (10 out of 15 series) and One Day International matches (73%).[7] However, the side failed to win either the 1996 World Cup or the 1999 World Cup, despite having the highest ODI success rate among international teams in that period.

At the 1996 tournament on the Indian subcontinent, his team won all their preliminary group matches before succumbing to the West Indies in the quarter finals.

At the 1999 tournament, South Africa faced Australia in the final match of the Super Six round; Australia needed to win to qualify for the semifinals, whereas South Africa had already done so. Australia boasted a superior recent record in must-win matches against South Africa. Media speculation was focused on Woolmer's team being less adept at handling high pressure situations. In the 1997/98 Australian international season, Australia had lost all four of their qualifying matches against South Africa in a triangular tournament and conceded a 1–0 finals series lead, before recovering to take the series 2–1. The Super Six match saw Australia win the match in the last over, after Herschelle Gibbs dropped Australian captain Steve Waugh in a premature celebration of a catch. Waugh went on to score an unbeaten century and score the winning runs. The semifinal rematch saw a late Australian comeback culminate in a tie, when with match scores level, South African batsmen Lance Klusener and Allan Donald had a mix up, with Donald dropping his bat and being run out. As a result, South Africa were eliminated due to their inferior performance in the earlier matches.[12] and Woolmer resigned.

Woolmer was a strong candidate to replace David Lloyd as coach of England in 1999 but wanted a break from cricket and was reluctant to lead England in a tour of South Africa so soon after having relinquished the South African coaching job.

Woolmer speaking at a cricket dinner in Cape Town in December 1999

He later returned to Warwickshire, and gained attention when he called for the removal of a life ban on South African captain Hansie Cronje for match-fixing. Woolmer spoke openly about Cronje and match fixing in an interview on the BBC TV programme "Panorama" in May 2001.[13] He then worked for the International Cricket Council in helping with cricket development in countries where the sport was not well established.[11]

He was appointed coach of the Pakistan team in 2004. This came after Javed Miandad was sacked when the Pakistanis conceded a 2–1 Test and 3–2 ODI series loss on home soil to arch rivals India, their first series win there in two decades. He was feted when his team reversed the result in early 2005 on their return tour to India, drawing the Tests 1–1 and winning the ODI series 4–2. In 2005 Pakistan beat England in a home series immediately after England had beaten the Australian team in England to secure the Ashes. In the home series against India that followed, Woolmer's side were victorious in the Test series, winning it 1–0; however, the side lost the ODI series that followed 4–1. Woolmer's side then beat Sri Lanka 2–0 in a 3 ODI series and achieved a 3rd consecutive Test series win with a 1–0 win in a 2 test series with Sri Lanka.

In August 2006, on the eve of Pakistan's Twenty20 international against England in Bristol, Bob Woolmer was forced to defend his reputation when it was claimed Pakistani players lifted the seam of the ball when he was in charge of the team.[14] Former International Cricket Council match referee Barry Jarman alleged that during the 1997 triangular one-day tournament involving South Africa, Zimbabwe and India, a match ball, still in Jarman's possession, that was confiscated after just 16 overs showed evidence of tampering by Woolmer's team. Woolmer could not recall any such incident and he denied advocating ball-tampering. He also indicated that he contacted the match officials from that game who also could not recall any such incident.[14]

Woolmer stated in 2006 that he believed that ball-tampering should be allowed in cricket and that a modification to existing laws should be made.[15]