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3 Oct 2010

Kenya Cricket: What is wrong?



I question again; "What's wrong with Kenyan Cricket??" "Why are they playing so bad?". These reactions are after viewing the scoreboard of the game between Afghanistan and Kenya. The African team had a devastating reply against Afghanistan's first inning total of 464. They managed to score only 160. However, Afghanistan batting is deteriorating too in the 2nd inning, as they are 166/5 till stumps, but lead of 470 means Kenya should work very hard to win this impossible looking target. I reckon year 2010 has not been lucky for Kenyan in terms of batting performance. They are consistently performing under par through out this year. I say "under par" because I didn't expect them to perform so badly. I don't know what went wrong with Kenyan batting, as their batting pillar, Steve Tikolo (Who was considered as Sachin Tendulkar of Associate cricket once) is still there. I personally think it's not fair to depend upon single man out of 11 to win a game, but this man has done so much for Kenya cricket like Sachin has been doing for India. 

I remember some very attractive players in Kenya team during late 90s: Rabindu Shah, Maurice Odumbe and Hitesh Modi. Rabindu Shah was very good stroke player who opened for Kenya in most of the matches. Hitesh Modi has the same job as Michael Bevan had for Australia, to finish the game. And Maurice Odumbe had proved to be very good allrounder. Steven Tikolo together with these players had made very competitive team during the late 90s, that had overcome big hurdles like West Indies, India and Sri Lanka. 

But now, Kenya is no where in competition with the top teams. This team has even lost its No. 1 rank among associate teams to Ireland, and now it is slowly moving down the ranking to give place to team like Afghanistan. Seeing the dream journey of Afghani team, I guess it will be the next team to get test ranking along with Ireland. But poor Kenya, I am afraid they can still be able to keep the charm of cricket alive in their country and produce new cricketers. Let's hope Kenya could still play competitive cricket and keep the spirit of game alive. 

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