Pretoria: South Africa all-rounder Albie Morkel has hired the country’s top detective to investigate into the murder of his close friend and former cricketer Louis Vorster, here, last week.

Morkel, who took a break from his IPL-V duties with the Chennai Super Kings to attend the funeral here on Saturday, could not be reached for a comment.

But Piet Byleveld, now in private practice after a distinguished career as the top detective in the South African Police services, confirmed to the Afrikaans daily Beeld that Morkel had asked him in his private capacity to assist in the investigation.

“If people ask me to assist, I will always do so,” Byleveld said. “At the moment I am still in Cape Town but will return to Gauteng on Monday when I will look at the details of the matter,” he added.

Former provincial player Vorster was killed and a bag containing a huge amount of money was stolen from his vehicle in broad daylight at a filling station alongside a busy highway last Tuesday.

Amid speculation that it was a planned hit, a close friend of Vorster claimed that the bag contained diamonds, but his wife said that Vorster was on his way to buy some generators for their farm. The 45-year-old Vorster played domestic first class cricket in South Africa and Namibia. Vorster spent most of his career in South Africa, playing for Transvaal, Northern Transvaal and North West. He represented a South African Invitational XI and South African Universities against the Australian ‘rebel’ tourists of 1986-87.

He played second XI cricket for Warwickshire and Worcestershire in England, playing one first-class match for the latter against the touring West Indians in 1988.

He relocated to Namibia in 2007 and made a comeback to first-class cricket at the age of 40 later that year when he made his debut for Namibia against North West. He played five further first-class matches for Namibia, in addition to three List A matches and a match against Zimbabwe A in 2009. He last played for them in October 2009.

In all, he played 95 first-class matches, scoring 4786 runs at an average of 33.23, with a top score of 188. In List A cricket he scored 2186 runs at an average of 30.36 with a top score of 93 not out.

An emotional Morkel, after hearing the news, had tweeted: “…I’m crying like a baby. Lost a great friend. RIP Louis Vorster. ”

Cricket Namibia, too, had expressed their “shock and dismay” after Vorster, who played ten times for Namibia, was shot dead.