By Qaiser Mohammad Ali. India, 02:32 PM IST

'This is my 20th year as a first-class cricket coach. Since I started in 1968, this is my 38th year in cricket,' Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer, who died Sunday in the West Indies, had proudly said while sitting in Room No. 716 of the Le Meridien Hotel in New Delhi.

'So I am not going to worry too much about it,' he told me in October last year when I mentioned him that people in Pakistan had already started talking in terms of his replacement following a change at the helm of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

He further said: 'More important for me is I enjoy cricket, I love cricket, I have a passion for the game, whether it involves Pakistan or South Africa or Warwickshire it doesn't matter. That's the same motivation, the same desire.'

Woolmer, the man who was also known as 'laptop coach' for his pioneering computer-aided strategy-making, had got the news of Shaharyar Khan being replaced by Nasim Ashraf only on reaching India for the Champions Trophy. He was sad to learn the exit of Khan as he was close to him - and many experts felt he survived as coach mainly because of Khan's support.

Woolmer's tenure with PCB was to end this June, but he was reportedly not keen on an extension and had planned to start an academy of his own in South Africa, where he had settled years ago, and spend more time with wife and two sons.

But his plans remained just that as he mysteriously died a day after Pakistan shockingly lost to minnows Ireland in Kingston Saturday and crashed out of the ongoing World Cup. Woolmer must have been shattered, but he did not show it.

Woolmer, who died aged 58, was passionate about the game. He was a strategist, a planner, a thinker, and an affable human being.

My first glimpse of Woolmer was in 1996 when he came to India as coach of the Hansie Cronje-led South African team. It was in Landmark Hotel in Kanpur, the city where he was born in 1948 while his father, who played one match for Uttar Pradesh, worked there.

At that time he was looked with awe as he had already earned fame because of his laptop. But his strategy had not worked then as India mauled South Africa in the Kanpur Test, during which Cronje had met a well-known Indian bookie. Woolmer's strategy probably failed only because he was most probably oblivious to Cronje's dabbling with match fixing and bookies.

I got to know Woolmer better on Pakistan's tour of India in 2005, on India's visit to Pakistan in 2006 and then later when the Pakistani team came to India for a forgettable Champions Trophy in October last year as there were more interactions with him.

I found him friendly, accessible and willing to talk anywhere, anytime. And always with a smile. A day before the first India-Pakistan Test in Faisalabad, he was returning to the dressing room after a long practice session. Although he was tired he informally chatted with me for about half an hour - stressing the passion for cricket in Pakistan, about how every kid in the country wants to become an Inzamam-ul-Haq or a Shahid Afridi. 'It's amazing, the passion in this country,' gushed the man who played 19 Tests and six One-day Internationals for England between 1975 and 1981.

Pakistani media, however, disappointed Woolmer. He felt that the press was most of the times writing negative stories, and it was quite amazing how he absorbed all the criticism and media pressure.

He opened up more on his Pakistani experience when I met him later, partly for a formal interview and partly for an informal discussion. When I asked him how his tenure has been, he said he had 'enjoyed all 10 months'.

'It's been a huge learning curve for me, in terms of dealing with the Pakistani cricketers and specifically the way they have supported me,' he said on tape, but I had not mentioned this in my story then.

'I am not worried about the criticism. If they get it wrong, they get it wrong, so what? There's no pressure on them getting it wrong, isn't it? It would be interesting if they got it wrong and they were sacked - because that's what happens to the captain, the coach or the side. So I'll be interested if the critics were under the same pressure,' he had bout the media.

Woolmer, however, had developed a special bond with captain Inzamam, and it seemed the admiration was mutual. 'You can't make a team unless the captain wants to. He needs a catalyst and that's the captain. In having an ally in Inzamam, who wanted the same thing, we had a common goal. And basically, the team wanted a common goal as well.'

Woolmer had clearly overcome the language barrier soon - he could have initially been difficult to understand for Pakistanis especially with his slightly nasal accent - and soon developed a liking for Pakistani culture. So much so that he had started using the often-spoken Urdu words.

'One of the great attributes of Pakistan is their friendliness and the ability to go out of the way to be nice to you and help you so on. That's been about the general people of the country. So it's been a wonderful experience from that point of view. No one can do too much for you,' he said after spending 10 months in Pakistan.

He also praised the PCB, though he was aware of their squabbling. 'The administration within the PCB is unbelievably good. They answer e-mails, they reply to you and get things done very quickly. And I'm not sure why, because there is continual badgering of people there, complaining, criticising. Like in any organisation, there are people with specific agendas. They want to go up in life, do things. Sometimes, things become unstable for the wrong reasons. Generally, people in Pakistan want cricket to do well.'

Woolmer also had some fine memories from the 2005 tour of India when Pakistan rallied to draw the three-match Test series 1-1 and then again staged a comeback from being 0-2 down to win the ODI series 4-2.

'The last day of the Bangalore (third) Test was a special moment for the team-and will be the watershed in their future development-most certainly, in the context of the series,' Woolmer told me a day after his team had won the sixth ODI in Delhi in April, sipping gin in his Taj Palace Hotel room, minutes after meeting Delhi Police Commissioner K.K. Paul.

He had gone to meet him to seek more details of the 2001 Hansie Cronje case of match-fixing for his book 'Discovering Cricket' that he was writing.

Eighteen months later, when he was again in Delhi for the 2006 Champions Trophy, he made me read from some of the chapters from his book, which is now being seen as a possible reason for his death (or murder?).

Would the same Woolmer who as coach always saw a captain as a 'catalyst', in this case Cronje case, have written something more damaging about him or that that might have hurt bookies who were involved in 2001 when Delhi Police uncovered the case?

The guessing game is on, but the man who would have answered these questions in the best possible manner is more. Maybe, soon we will know the cause of his death. And, maybe, we will also get to read his unfinished book to 'discover' more about the game - and more important, the rare insight of Woolmer the cricketer and the coach.

(Qaiser Mohammad Ali is sports editor of IANS and author of 'Penguin World Cup Cricket Companion 2007'. He can be reached at qaiser.ali@ians.in)

By Qaiser Mohammad Ali (Staff Writer, © IANS)