Time to revamp cricket

Kenya’s defeat at the hands of touring Uganda in the final of the inaugural Continent Cup Twenty20 Africa on Wednesday at the Nairobi Gymkhana isn’t shocking considering the gradual plunge in standards over the past two decades.

Cricket Cranes, who are considered Kenyan students, defeated the hosts by one run in the final, moments after they had beaten Kenya twice in the preliminaries of the tournament. The tournament that attracted Botswana and Rwanda also saw Kenya painfully lose to Botswana, which is coached by former Kenyan international Joseph Angara.

Losing to Uganda, which was once handled by Kenyan legend Steve Tikolo and Botswana is something that could have never been imagined 20 years ago from a team that had brought down heavyweights like Sri Lanka, West Indies and India.

Kenya was bundled out of the 2023 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup contention after losing to Tanzania and Uganda in Africa Region Qualifier last year. The sorry state of Kenya’s cricket is a clear manifestation of what mismanagement, incessant power struggle and rogue administrators can lead to.

When Kenya made history as the first non-Test playing nation to reach the semi-finals of the Cricket World Cup in 2003, Uganda and Botswana were nowhere in the world of cricket. It was only in August, last year that Kenya returned to hosting international cricket matches after almost a decade when it hosted Nepal at the Nairobi Gymkhana Club ground.

The country that had witnessed fragmentation owing to many years of wrangles in Cricket Kenya leadership saw a new team led by Manoj Narshi Patel elected in February last year. It will take painstakingly many years before Kenya, which lost its One Day International (ODI) status in 2015 and the International Cricket Council (ICC) funding of up to Sh70 million in 2019, can regain its lost glory.

That can only happen if CK embraces workable development programmes both for the game and the national teams. It’s good news that ICC has resumed funding CK activities hence CK must take advantage of it.