LESS than a day after his team’s elimination from the ICC Cricket World Cup following a shocking loss to Ireland, Pakistan’s coach Bob Woolmer was pronounced dead at hospital after being found unconscious in his hotel room in Kingston by hotel attendants.

Woolmer, one of the world’s leading cricket coaches and an England batsman of the 1970s, was 58.

He is survived by wife Gill, and two sons.

There was no word up to last night as to the cause of death. Pervez Jamil Mir, media manager for the Pakistan cricket team, told journalists from a prepared statement yesterday that “there will be a coroner’s inquest in keeping with Jamaican law and an autopsy will take place to determine the cause of his death”.

Mir said “further information will be provided at the earliest opportunity once it has been received”.

The Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) confirmed last night that Woolmer was found unconscious by hotel cleaning staff just before noon. The CCN said the cause of death would be determined after a post mortem – expected today.

The Associated Press reported yesterday that Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Naseem Ashraf said Woolmer had complained of breathing difficulties before the team left Pakistan for the World Cup, and was diabetic.

“He informed me this just before the team departed for the West Indies and I told him ‘take care of yourself, Bob’,” Ashraf said in a Pakistani TV broadcast, adding that Woolmer sometimes wore an oxygen mask.

Inevitably, there were suggestions yesterday that Woolmer’s death may have been connected to the high-stress nature of his job as Pakistan’s cricket coach.

And when quizzed by journalists yesterday, Mir confirmed that the pressure on all parties was considerable in the cricket-mad Pakistani environment.

“In Pakistan yesterday when we lost this game, the entire people of Pakistan were so devastated and rightly so, and of course, at the same moment in time this pressure has mounted on Bob (Woolmer), on the captain, on the boys, the tour management, the Pakistan cricket board. It’s a very natural thing and the pressures are certainly there. There is no question about it,” said Mir.

Although Pakistan’s loss to Ireland may have been Woolmer’s lowest point, Malcolm Speed, chief executive of the sport’s world governing body, said it may have been one of his greatest achievements.

“In some ways we can say that yesterday’s loss, when Pakistan lost to Ireland, was a great defeat for Bob and the Pakistan team,” he said. “But for Bob, there’s another way of looking at it. It was a great triumph because he was the man who started the ICC development programme and one of the countries he coached and coached with great passion was Ireland.”

Last night, tributes to Woolmer were flowing locally, regionally and from all parts of the cricketing world.

Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller joined those expressing condolences yesterday.

“A dark shadow has been cast on the ICC Cricket World Cup and our hearts go out to the family of Mr Woolmer and the Pakistan cricket team,” said Simpson Miller.

The Jamaican Government stood ready to offer any assistance that may be required, the prime minister pledged.

West Indies captain Brian Lara, who grew close to Woolmer while on contract with English county side Warwickshire in 1994 at a time when the former England batsman was coach there, described him as an “awesome guy and a very, very nice, affable person” on whose mind cricket weighed “very heavily”.

Said Lara: “I had a wonderful relationship with Bob at Warwickshire in 1994 and our relationship continued to grow over the years, even though we sat in different dressing rooms.”

“He was a tremendous all-rounder for Kent and for England and magnificent cricket coach,” said retired Test umpire Harold “Dickie” Bird, who became a close friend. “Bob was respected worldwide. He developed into the finest cricket coach in the world.”

Born in India, Woolmer, who played 19 Test matches for England, worked as a coach on three continents, including a stint for the ICC helping developing cricket nations.

(More on Bob Woolmer’s death in Sport)