Oram joins Indian Twenty20 league

South Africa all-rounder Shaun Pollock, his New Zealand counterpart Jacob Oram and Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar have signed up for the Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 series, organisers said.Their inclusion takes to 25 the number of foreign players who have committed to the lucrative league due to start next April.Shoaib, who completes a 13-match ban after the first four one-day internationals against South Africa which start on Thursday, said he had signed up after getting clearance from the Pakistan Cricket Board."I will be available to play in the IPL only when I am not needed by Pakistan. That remains my top priority," he said."But my first hope is to tour India next month with Pakistan and play in the tests and one-dayers."The IPL, with $3 million prize money, was launched by the Indian cricket board in September with support from other national boards to counter an unofficial version planned from next month.The inaugural edition will feature eight teams to be bought by franchisees, with plans to double the field by 2010.Those already signed up include retired Australian bowling stalwarts Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, New Zealand's Daniel Vettori and Stephen Fleming, Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene and Sanath Jayasuriya, South Africa's Graeme Smith and Pakistan batsman Mohammad Yousuf.Yousuf had earlier been linked to the unofficial Indian Cricket League (ICL), which is now under pressure after the official version lured many top names in the game.Each IPL franchise would have a squad of sixteen, which would comprise local players, juniors, members of the Indian national squad and overseas professionals.

Inquest hears of blood, vomit in Woolmer death

A Jamaican chambermaid said on Tuesday she found a bloodied bed, an overturned chair and a smell like alcohol and vomit when she stumbled on former Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer's unconscious body in his Kingston hotel room earlier this year.Chambermaid Bernice Robinson, the first witness to testify as a long-awaited inquest opened into Woolmer's startling death during the Cricket World Cup, said his body lay blocking the bathroom door of room 374 at the Pegasus hotel, one of his feet stretched up to the wash basin."I started to look around the room, and I noticed that there was a chair that was overturned," she said."There was blood on the pillow and the bed. I continued looking around the room and didn't see him. And then I went into the bathroom. The door was closed, I knocked, got no response, then I tried to open the door but I couldn't open it as something was pressing against it."Robinson said she panicked and shouted, "Sir, sir, is everything OK?" before running for help. She recalled a smell "like vomit and alcohol mixed together" and saw vomit on the bathroom floor.Her discovery of Woolmer's unconscious body on March 18, a day after Pakistan crashed out of the World Cup following an ignominious defeat by underdogs Ireland, kicked off a maelstrom that gripped the international cricket world for months.Jamaican police initially said Woolmer was strangled and launched a murder investigation. That touched off frenzied media speculation that the former English international player, 58, might have been killed by a gambling syndicate or disgruntled Pakistani fans or players. But the Jamaican police delivered another shock in June by saying they had made a mistake about the murder claim and that pathologists from Canada, Britain and South Africa had found Woolmer died of natural causes.

Dr. Nathaniel Carey, a British pathologist who examined the autopsy report confirmed that view."Based on the photographs that I saw, and the histology results, I came to that conclusion," he said. "Mr. Woolmer had a heart condition and he had diabetes, plus he was found behind a door as if he had suffered an attack."However, the pathologist said it was possible someone had been with Woolmer around the time of his death."Would you agree with me there could have been a third party in Mr. Woolmer's room at the time of his death," Director of Public Prosecutions Kent Pantry asked Carey."Yes, there could have been," Carey replied.Coroner Patrick Murphy, who is presiding over the inquest, took careful notes during the testimony and told a jury of six women and five men the inquest would probably last until Nov. 9. He said it would be up to them to decide Woolmer's cause of death.