• In the early 2000s, Kenya were rubbing shoulders with the top Test Nations thanks to the talents exhibited by the Tikolos, Odumbes, Sujis, Ravindus, Angaras among others.
• Angara adds that if Kenya ‘A’ had been established, then it would have easily catered for all talents that would not have found a place in the national team.
Recently, Kenyan cricket has been dominated by all manner of reports which have thrown the sport into confusion, leaving fans yearning for the old good days.
Celebrations that used to dominate the local cricket scene have since been replaced with criticism right from the media, fans, players, officials and the rest of the stakeholders.
This was the case following an uninspiring outing at the ICC Cricket World Cup Challenge in November last year, where team selection was the main talking point.
The recall from the retirement of 47-year-old Lameck Onyango was a major concern from cricket lovers, who thought his return denied some young prospects an opportunity to showcase what they are capable of at the top level.
And despite the veteran's inclusion, the team’s poor displays continued.
However, former international Alfred Njuguna has no problem with Onyango’s selection.
“With all due respect, putting all the analysis of the ‘experts’ aside and thinking about what went wrong, you will realise that today’s problem is not mainly due to the team selection,” he said.
Over the years, Kenya has had the ability to produce some of the best players but recent activities by the selection panels and results on the field of play have only been a tell-tell sign of what going wrong at Cricket Kenya.
A number of issues have been blamed for the slump including system failure at CK, lifestyle and diminishing of structures.
CK politics and management wrangles have hollowed the sport in the country. Those in charge have failed to tap into the plethora of talented players who continue to shine at club level and transforming them into national team material.
In addition, players who start hitting the headlines for their exemplary performances are unable to handle the fame and stardom much to their decline and inability to perform when it matters.
The CK structures of identifying, nurturing and monitoring the national team probables right from the grassroots have also been wanting.
In the early 2000s, Kenyans were rubbing shoulders with the top Test Nations, thanks to the talent exhibited by the Tikolos, Odumbes, Sujis, Ravindus and the Angaras among others.
However, the country has been unable to develop a team to match them now that their heydays are over.
With Maurice Odumbe and Steve Tikolo at their prime, Francis Otieno, Sam Auma, Gabriel Bimo, John Mayieka are among the players who were expected to take their mantle while Alfred Luseno, Andrew Mboya, Felix Otieno and Josephat Ababu were among the junior players who were expected to take up the bowling duties from Onyango, Martin Suji and Joseph Angara.
But that was never to be as they all fell along the way. Ababu became one of the few bowlers to take a wicket with his first-ever delivery in a One Day International when he dismissed Neil Johnson at Nairobi Gymkhana in 1999.
Those who played him will vouch how accurate and consistent he was then. But after that performance, it took him four years to get back into the national team when he was selected into the squad for the 2004 Champions Trophy. That was the last time he donned national team colours despite showing so much promise.
Bimo was a talented all-rounder. However, he was more of a threat with the bat than the ball which won him a place in Swamibapa and Gymkhana before disappearing the scene in unclear circumstances. He remains one of those talents that could have broken into the national rank with ease.
Otieno was seen as the next Deepak Chudasama with his typical textbook shots at the top order and batted for a longer period, scoring hundreds after hundreds in his peak in the domestic and U-19 career. His talent and knowledge of the game saw him captain Thomas Odoyo, Ongondo, Jimmy Kamande and David Obuya at the age-group level. With this, he was tipped to be the next skipper after the Odumbe and Tikolo era but he also faded away.
Felix and Mayieka were talented all-rounders who had all the ingredients to play at the top level but just like it was the case with their peers, they were not able to hold on. Mayieka was so talented that he got a place to train at the prestigious Plascon Cricket Academy.
Auma, the elder brother to Alex Obanda, is another talent that Kenyan cricket had pegged hopes on but it never came to be. The opening batsman was a very handy leg spinner with a knack of breaking partnerships at will. He had a very successful career at the U-19 level but how he exited the stage without having donned the national team colours still baffles many.
Of all these and many more players, Luseno received the most chances at the top level, playing over 40 matches but as fate would have it, he exited the stage early.
Tikolo, who captained and later coached the national team, feels a lot is to blame for these unfulfilled dreams.
“There are players who were casualties of the system that was in place. They came into the team when we already had established players. Francis was to fight for a place with Odumbe, Kennedy, Ravindu and me. Andrew was to fight for a place with Suji, Odoyo, Angara and Ongondo. They found it hard to break even and unfortunately, took a back seat that turned out to be forever,” says Tikolo.
Maurice Ouma concurs: “It was very tough to get into the team then because all the players were doing well and were working hard to keep their places. Failure to make it into the team could have affected them negatively.”
But Suji feels that lack of a Kenya ‘A’ side would have also contributed to the loss of such talents.
“It’s true that competition was high at the top level and it was difficult for some to win a place. But we didn’t have a team that would have accommodated them. It’s obvious that not everybody would have played for the national team at that time and that’s why we needed a feeder team that would have given all those national team prospects a place to compete,” Suji says.
Angara adds that if Kenya ‘A’ had been established, then it would have easily catered for all talents that would not have found a place in the national team.
“We had players who were scoring runs and bowling well in the league but didn’t have a place in the national squad. They felt wasted and ended up losing interest in the game. But if we had a team just below the national team, then we would have saved more talents,” Angara says.
There are also players who were also brought into the national team too early and when they were later dropped, for obvious reasons, they felt heartbroken thus quit the game.
“We had players who were introduced into the team too early. I remember a time when we had over 50 players donning the national team jersey. Most of them thought that donning the national jersey was enough to compete at the top while the reality on the ground was different,” observes Ongondo.
Lifestyle also took a toll on some. A number of players were unable to contain the privileges that came with playing at the top level. There are players who were accused of disappearing from training for weeks after receiving their salaries or allowances.
“We have players who worked hard in the middle of the month but as soon as the money hit their bank accounts, they frustrated the team by not turning up for training, for weeks. At times, the coach had to go out of his way just to make sure they don’t miss out,” Ongondo recalls.
With Kenya still coming to terms with the ‘loss of a generation’ another group of players who had the potential to play at the top level are also missing out. The likes of Peter Kituku, Ibrahim Akello, Ken Owino, Raj Savala, Paul Anjere and Dominic Wesonga were touted to be national team stars of the future but this didn't also come to pass.
Kituku, Owino, Keval, Savala and Anjere were remarkable at the junior level but again the systems at CK failed them too. When they graduated from the age-group cricket, they found themselves struggling to knock on the doors of the national team and due to their inexperience coupled with the prowess of the mainstays at the time, they couldn’t hack it.
“A Kenya ‘A’ team would have prepared such players and ensure their transition from the junior ranks into the national team,” adds Angara.
Kituku was clearly better than everyone else in that setup. It was evident that he was destined for greatness. He was gifted and was born to bat but he laments that some forces in CK failed him.
He accuses a member of the current national team technical bench for confiscating his passport hours to a team’s travel to give an opportunity to another player that had ways to influence the team.
After retiring, Angara and Suji set up an Elite squad in order to bridge the gap by assembling a number of players to act as a feeder to the national team, a move that was well received by the players who had just finished playing at the age-group level.
“Months into the setup, we were able to confidently challenge the national team players and we saw ourselves getting into the national team structures but within a short time, things just stopped. The national team management started questioning and challenging what the coaches were doing and the program stopped. And because we were left ‘idling’ in the setup, we had to look for other means to survive,” Paul Anjere says.
By the time Kituku got his passport back — four years later, he claims — he had already lost interest in the game. He and his friends saw the sport as a way to eke a living by playing at the top level but after missing out on contracts at the national team, they had to look for ways and means to survive with coaching being the easiest route.
Save for the few mentioned above, many more players have burst onto the scene with good instinct and passion for the game but the system has been unable to groom and build on this human resource which has left the country badly exposed at the regional and international level.
In addition, infrastructure at junior and domestic cricket is wanting. Some countries who used to succumb to Kenya have made huge strides and can currently compete better.