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Former Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq says he and fellow teammates endured a 10-day ‘nightmare’ in Jamaica following the sudden death of their coach Bob Woolmer on March 18.

In his diary for bigstarcricket.com, Inzamam also wrote that he was relieved to know that Woolmer was not murdered

“I am pleased to hear that Bob was not murdered, all the boys will feel the same as I’m sure his family will also. But this verdict will never take away one of the toughest periods in our lives. It was a nightmare,” he wrote.

Jamaican Police on Tuesday announced that Woolmer died of natural causes almost three months after launching a murder probe following a pathologist reports which said that the Englishman was strangled.

Pakistani players had to go through Police interrogation, were finger-printed and had to give DNA samples before being allowed to fly out of Jamaica.

“Those final 10 days in the Caribbean were the hardest of my life. We went through hell. I was always hopeful and confident that Bob died naturally and that the Jamaican doctors made a mistake. It seems likely that the doctors there have said something wrong, maybe, but I don’t know the full facts,” he added.

Inzamam, 37, who had to resign as Pakistan captain after leading the team in its worst ever World Cup campaign, said that Woolmer’s ‘murder’ announcement was a fatal blow for the quadrennial spectacle.

“I don’t know what has happened there but I can tell you it wasn’t good for the players or for Pakistan cricket. Actually when they started talking about ‘murder’ it was not a good thing for the world of cricket, not just Pakistan. It took over the whole World Cup,” he wrote.

Inzamam said that he is feeling better after a two-month layoff and is now planning to make his international return.

“I needed a long time afterwards to get away from it all. After a two-month break I now feel relaxed again, the stress is gone and day by day things have become better. I started practice again two weeks ago. For six days a week I go to the gym and in the evenings when the weather is cooler I go to Lahore Gymkhana to practice my cricket. The club has good practice facilities, good bowlers, good pitches — they are a good club and it gives me all that I need for practice,” he explained.

He added, “Before the World Cup we were playing a lot of cricket and it was tiring. Then after all that happened at the World Cup I felt I need that two-month break. Now I’m mentally focused and feeling refreshed and very ambitious to play more Test cricket. I’m confident that I will and I’m working hard to make it happen.”

Inzamam, who has scored 8813 runs from 119 Tests, wants to continue playing cricket till he reached the 10,000-run milestone.

“I’m aware that I need a few runs (21) to pass Javed Miandad (to become Pakistan’s highest run-scorer) but I am looking further ahead than that. I want to score at least another thousand Test runs and get to 10,000. The summer that Pakistan has coming up later in the year is all the motivation I need with tough series against South Africa at home, India in India and then Australia at home. Hopefully the selectors will feel that my experience will be useful to the team. InshAllah,” he signed off.