Where is the Glory of Kenyan Cricket?
Fans of Kenyan Cricket team will be still having that nice memory of their dashing performance in the 2003 ICC world cup which was also co-hosted by Kenya. An ever-great star jammed team including Maurice Odumbe, Thomas Odoyo, Steve Tikolo, Hitesh Modi etc.
In fact, the team’s golden moments in International Cricket started with their famous win against India in May 1998, held at Roop Singh Stadium, Gwalior, India. Kenya surged against the favorites with a massive victory of 69 runs in which Maurice Odumbe starred with both bat (83 runs out of 91 balls) and ball (3 wickets for 14 runs).
They repeated the same in 2001 at South Africa where they beat India by 50 runs. They went on with their good form and qualified for the 2003 World Cup.
In their Epic performance, Kenya defeated Canada, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and lost to West Indies and South Africa. They got qualified to the Super Sixes after the free points received from the walkover match with New Zealand (they pulled over from the match citing safety issues).
They defeated Zimbabwe in the Super Sixes and confirmed the Semi-final berth which was for the first time by an associate country. Unfortunately, they couldn’t repeat their good performance in the Semi’s and lost to mighty Indian team by 91 runs. But they definitely won the hearts of many.
With this, the entire cricket world envisaged that this would become a moment like 1983 for India and 1996 for Sri Lanka. However, by adding worries, the Star player Maurice Odumbe has been alleged in a match fixing scandal following life-time ban from the Cricket.
They appeared in the next two World cups also, but were never able to win matches or hearts again in the international cricket Arena.
Many of the Kenyan’s think that the match fixing incident was the basic reason for the Kenyan Cricket declining, but there are so many other reasons which eventually affected the nation’s cricket prospects. Before judging Odumbe as a Crooked Face behind the entire problems of Kenyan Cricket, let us discuss the following;
1. Why the Kenyan cricket is not able to bag good sponsorships which can be utilized for the wellbeing of the cricket in the country?
2. Why it was not possible to encourage and inspire young players in to the team with good coaching?
3. Why there is no action from the government side as it has great potential in terms of employment? Take a look on examples like Rashid Khan from Afghanistan and Sandeep Lamichanne from Nepal who are earning good money from Twenty -Twenty leagues around the globe such as IPL, PSL & 100 despite of being part of associate countries.
There is a requirement of non-political and non-corruptive leadership with the help of Indigenous or abroad sponsorships for the resurrection of Kenyan Cricket. As we are in a deep shit in terms of winning games, it will be difficult to get abroad companies for sponsorship for the time being. But we have lot of businessmen in the country who really has tastes in the sports like Manu Chandaria, Gideon Miruiki, Jayesh Saini, James Olubayi etc; who knows, can it give feathers to our dreams again? If we all make efforts, the time is not so long as Nairobi Gymkhana again becomes a hotspot in the International Cricket Map.
