Cricket team hunting down south

By Oscar Pilipili

The national cricket team is seeking its third successive appearance at the ICC World Cup.

The team that rocked the world by reaching the semi-finals during the 2003 tournament arrived in South Africa on Saturday ready for the qualifying round programmed to start on April 1.

Captain Steve Tikolo says they are looking forward to qualify for the 2011 World Cup in Pakistan. He expressed satisfaction over the progress the team has been making in readiness for the qualifiers.

"This is an opportunity for us to qualify to the next World Cup and we’re confident that we will be one of the teams to reach there," Tikolo said.

The team that is coached by Andy Kirsten held a 10-day high-level training camp in Nairobi and went to South Africa for build-up matches last month.

The all-rounder captain, who has been the stronghold of the team for years, said the activities have helped to improve the performance of the team.

Improved batting

"We did a lot of drills which have improved batting and bowling aspects in the team," he said.

"The ability of the batting order was evident during the tour of South Africa when we won the last match by 150 runs after scoring 300 runs," he said.

Tikolo said all the players were working pretty hard to take Kenya to its third successive appearance at the World Cup. The team will attend a two-week training camp at Pretoria’s High Performance Centre in readiness for the qualifiers.

Tikolo said: "The Pretoria camp will help us to correct small mistakes that were discovered during recent trainings."

Kenya would play three-warm up matches against local league sides ahead of the qualifiers.

They are pooled in Group ‘B’ and play their opening match against Netherlands at Potchefstroom on April 1.

Teams in the group

The other teams in the group are: Bermuda, United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Afghanistan and Namibia. The players left Nairobi in high spirits after Cricket Kenya finally awarded performers at the Sahara Elite League that was played last year.

The competition sponsored by Sahara Computers was played in three categories namely twenty-20, 50 overs and longer version.

Eastern Aces team of Tikolo were declared winners of the twenty-20 while Thomas Odoyo’s Northern Nomads prevailed in the 50 overs and longer version.

In a prize giving ceremony that was attended by Government officials at Parklands Sports Club, winners got Sh100,000, first runners- up Sh60,000, second runners-up Sh40,000 with fourth place finishers carrying home Sh25,000 in each category.

Tikolo was named the Most Valuable Player with 17 points and the achievement earned his Sh50,000.

Kenya National Sports Council chairman Joshua Okuthe praised pioneer players for putting cricket on the world map and challenged youngsters to keep the fire burning. Sports Commissioner Gordon Oluoch pointed out that cricket is one of the two sports, the other being rugby, that have taken Kenya to the semi-final stage of World Cup. The cricketers achieved the feat at the 2003 World Cup while rugby stars did it at the recent IRB Sevens World Cup in Dubai.