Bob Woolmer's family have authorised the Jamaican authorities to go ahead with the autopsy as they were unable to travel to the Caribbean.
KARACHI: Bob Woolmer's family in South Africa have authorised the Jamaican authorities to go ahead with the autopsy as they were unable to travel to the Caribbean in time, a Pakistan cricket team official has said.
Wooolmer, Pakistan's coach, died in Kingston, Jamaica, on Sunday, a day after the team's shock loss to minnows Ireland in the World Cup.
Pakistan team officials confirmed that Woolmer's family would not be coming to Kingston to collect the body but had asked the Pakistan team trainer Murray Stevenson to oversee the entire process and send back the body to Capetown.
"Local laws in Kingston make it mandatory to have a post-mortem with the permission of the deceased's family. We think he might have died of a heart attack but until this autopsy is completed we have to wait," an official said.
Woomer was found dead in the washroom of his hotel room on Sunday with vomit on the floor and walls and the team official said there was also a sugar check metre lying close to him.
The former England player was a diabetic patient and also suffered from the rare sleeping disorder of Apnea where the patient stop breathing while sleeping.
The team official said apparently Woolmer didn't get enough time to call anyone for help. "The condition in which his body was discovered was very tragic. His face had gone blue and his hands and feet were white."
He said that the Pakistan team was expecting a report from the coroner's office by Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest.
Due to the postmortem process, the Pakistan team will now return from Kingston on Saturday instead of Thursday.
Team officials said they were unhappy with reports in the local media in Jamaica expressing suspicion about Woolmer's death.
"As it is the players are already depressed and in grief because Woolmer was like a father figure to them. And then to read such reports has upset them. They are certainly not in the right frame of mind to play Wednesday's game against Zimbabwe," one official said.
"However the boys want to complete the match as it is a World Cup game and they feel their coach would also have done the same thing," he added.
The impact Woolmer's death has had on the Pakistan team was obvious from the fact that players living on the same floor as Woolmer had shifted their rooms out of stress, the official said.
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