Kingston (Jamaica) March 19 (IANS) Did late Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer have premonition of the fatal defeat to Ireland, which he had described as a "potential banana skin"?

"You would expect us to go through, but we cannot underestimate any team. Teams like Ireland are potential banana skin... and Zimbabwe," Woolmer says in the book, "The Penguin World Cup Cricket Companion 2007", by IANS Sports Editor Qaiser Mohammad Ali.

Minnows Ireland shocked Pakistan Saturday, sending the 1992 World Cup winners out of the 16-nation competition. Woolmer died of a heart attack in his hotel room here a day later.

"If we don't win the World Cup, people would be disappointed and you would be judged a choker or failure. Point is that we've just got to do our best. It's going to be tough. So we'll have hell of a tough competition up to the semi-finals," he says in the interview.

Woolmer was targeting at least a semi-final place for the Pakistani team, which he has been coaching since 2005, and was even hopeful of reaching the final.

"I hope on the day we play better than Australia or England or whoever we are playing against. The bottom-line is that we have got to do the business and finish in the top four, semi-finals. That's where we got to be. And as they say in Pakistan, Insha Allah, we will keep that going," he had hoped.

Woolmer died aged 58 years in Kingston Sunday, a day after Pakistan crashed out of the World Cup following two successive defeats.

Woolmer said in the interview that it was Inzamam's ambition to be part of a second World Cup-winning side, this time as captain.

"Obviously, one of his ambitions is to win the World Cup to become the second Pakistani captain to hold the trophy (after Imran Khan in 1992)." Inzamam was part of that cup-winning team in Australia.

Woolmer also stressed that this World Cup was an "open" competition.

"For me, this particular World Cup is the closest of all. Australia have lost that genuine invincibility tag. They are more vulnerable now than they would ever be. They are a damn good side, but they are not the West Indies of the early 1980s," he averred.

"The Australian side of a few years ago -- the 2003 World Cup and Steve Waugh's team - had that sort of the invincibility tag; they were very, very difficult to beat. Here, Australia have made mistakes, they make mistakes."