Otieno, Aga back in Kenya squad

Kennedy Otieno and Ragheb Aga were the the only two changes to the Kenya squad that will beging their season definiing tour of Europe. The 16 man squad will spend two weeks in the Sothe of England playing a series of warm up matches against various cluba and minor counties before they head off to Ireland to play in the qualifying tournament for the ICC T20 World cup in England in 2009. This will be followed by Intercontinental Cup matches against Scotland and the Netherlands as well as several one day internationals.

The return of Ragheb Aga despite his not playing in Cricket Kenya's Sahara Elite League maks a fairly successful year for the young paceman who landed a one year conract with English County side Sussex, for whom he has taken 7 wickets at 23.14 apiece from 5 innings in the County Championship. His familiarity with local conditions will be important to the success of the tour. Kennedy Obuya on the other hand has been the leading runscorer in the Sahara Elite league scoring two centuries in leading the Southern Stars to the 2 day league title.

Full Squad.

Sahara Elite League: Season one

With the last weekend of First Class matches failing to produce a definite winner the inagural season of Cricket's Sahara Elite league drew to a rather low key, if not somewhat dissapointing, conclusion. The Southern Stars, under the captaincy of veteran wicket-keeper batsman Kennedy Obuya, managed to eke out just about enough points from their two drawn games and one walk over victory to win the 2-day competition meaning that at the end of the entire series the only franchise that was left empty handed was the Western Chiefs.

With the competition having been put back severally due to various reasons including most unfortunately the violence that rocked the country following disputed general elections, it was going to be a somewhat difficult task to make the competition work when a huge chunk of trhe most ideal time to play the matches had been eaten away. Nonetheless the first two formats went without a hitch with The Eastern Aces blowing away the competition in the T20 competition and the Northern Nomads carrying the day in the 50 overs One day league. However with very little time left till they were set to begin Cricket Kenya opted to postpone the last, and probably most significant, part of the competition the three day league. The reason being unfavourable weather would make it difficult to play a meaningful competition during the expected rainy season months of April and May.

With the competition now set to start in June it became apparent that the fact that a sinificant number of players drafted to play would not be available for action for their teams due to school and work commitments and the three day competition became a two day competition, which although made it possible for the teams to just about scrape together playing XIs meant that ultimately there was not enough time in any of the games to force a result with both the Southern Stars, and Northern Nomads coming desperately close in pursuit of winnable totals.

With the objective of getting the competition off the ground completed despite all the difficulties along the way there were definitely a few lessons to be learned both positive and negative. Though the competition was closesly fought the brevity of the tournaen might be an issue to look into with bothe One Day tournaments concluded in only 12 days of cricket and when it comes to selecting the best of the best to repent Kenya in 50 overs and T20 matches 3 matche seems a little small a number of games to consider. Crickcet Kenya could consider inviting representative sides from Uganda and Tanzania to bulk up the competition and guarantee each side at least 5 matches or doubling the number of games each side plays so there can be the prospect of home and away games. They could also consider the prospect of having the games televised on local television stations as a means of gettig the public interested as well as drawing investors. Aside from that, now that the competition is up and running, hopefully we are witnessing the beginning of something that could become central to Kenyan and possibly regional cricket for years to come.

World Cup 2010: So the journey begins

The journey to the 2010 World cup for Kenya's Harambee began to take shape in earnest with two home wins and an impressive 0-0 away draw against Zimbabwe in Harare (I know, its amazing how given the situation poorly the situation is over there such a high profile global organisation such as FIFA continues to function unabated, but that is another topic for some other blue eyed idealist Joe Blogger to cry about). Anyway after the now near ritualistic dispute over who is really in charge of the KFF and therefore the Harambee Stars, yep after the court order and appeals and the ominous threat of yet another FIFA ban and appeals were gotten out of the way the FIFA approved lot got their way and the campaign finally got away with Mathare United custodian Francis Kimanzi taking up the hot seat and with it the hopes of the uniquely fickle yet fiercely patriotic football fans.

The first assignment, an away match against an improving Namibia side, resulted in last minute heartbreak as the Stars went down 2-1. fortunately or unfortunately Mr Kimanzi only ahd the one week to turn things around l with the doom mongers already starting to surface before the second match at home against group favourites Guinea. The result, a highly reasuring and confident display of counter attacking football and a 2-0 win featuring goals from Auxerre based striker Denis Oliech. That and of course the issues of poor crowd control that have become sadly a common feature with important football matches at Nyayo stadium.

Having got the issue of that first win under new management out of the way the Stars then looked to build up some momentum with another positive result in the first of two matches against Zimbabwe (the second as stated earlier ending in a goal less stalemate in Harare). The result again another impressive looking 2-0 win with the Harambee Stars again showing the sort of free flowing football that has put Mathare United (Francis Kimanzi's other team) in the driver's seat in the Premier league.

So now the Harambee Stars sit joint top with Guinea at the top of group 2 on 7 points with matches against Guinea in Conakry and Namibia in Nairobi left and needing only to finish as one of 8 best runners up to make it to round three of the qualifiers their destiny is very much in theri own hands. A home win against Namibia and a draw in Conakry should just about secure qualification though a win against Guinea would see Kenya win their group.

Player Watch 3: Ragheb Aga

It has come to the attention of this blogger that one Ragheb Aga, having earned himself one year contract with current English County Cricket Champions Sussex , has earned selection to play in the traditional season opening fixture against the M.C.C at Lords. In so doing in addition to being the first player from Kenya since Collins Obuya to play in the full County Championship, is the first to participate in this particular fixture

Ragheb Aga is a product of Kenya's youth team system having captained the Kenya u19 National team in 2003 and represented the full national side in their tours of the West Indies in 2003-4 and in the Champions trophy in 2004, going even as far as captaining a young Kenya side in an Intercontinental Cup tie against Scotland in later that year. He last wore Kenyan colours in this match against Zimbabwe 'A'.

Player watch 2: Kennedy Obuya

Having been dropped from the side in mid 2006 veteran wicket-keeper batsman Kennedy Obuya has had a bit of an Indian Summer playing grade cricket in Australia and scoring heavily for the Caboolture Snakes. He has more recently returned to Kenya to captain the newly formed Southern Stars in Kenya's Elite league where he has continued to score heavily even getting a 93 to lead his side to their first win of the competition in the 50 over competition.




This video is from the 1999 World cup where he takes a marvellous diving catch off the bowling of Jimmy Kamande, who was at the time a medium pace bowler. How times have changed...