Kenya finish their ICC World Cup Qualifier with a consolation win, but with a long an difficult journey ahead of them before they return to the big time.
Kenya finished their Cricket World Cup 2027 Qualification campaign on a high note, with a comfortable 88-run win over Papua New Guinea at the Gymkhana Club ground in Nairobi.
Kenya closed their ICC World Cup Qualifying campaign with a consolation win over Papua New Guinea (Source: Cricket Kenya)
Put in to bat in a rain-shortened match, Kenya cruised to a challenging total of 231/7 in 38 overs, before bowling out their opponents for 142. Dhiren Gondaria’s solid 68 (84 balls) at the top of the innings and Francis Mutua’s power hitting (40 runs from 29 balls) at the end were the basis of Kenya’s total, while Shem Ngoche and Vraj Patel, both left-arm finger spinners, accounted for 6 wickets.
Despite this win, Kenya finished their section of the ICC Challenge League bottom, with a record of four wins, 9 losses and 2 no-results from 15 games. We are out of the running for the 2027 Cricket World Cup.
Further, our status as a “List A” nation within the International Cricket Council will be put to the test in an ICC Challenge playoff against the two teams relegated from ICC Challenge League B, and several other minnow nations who would want an opportunity at the big time, in the next ICC Challenge Playoff.
Twelve years ago, the Kenyan Men’s National Team lost their One-Day International Status, at the Qualifying tournament for the 2015 Cricket World Cup. Today, the national team hit an even lower low, losing by 150 runs to Kuwait and losing “List A” Status in the process, in the second-to-last game of the final leg of the ICC Challenge League Group A.
Having won the toss and sent the Kuwaitis in to bat, the Kenyan bowling attack was shredded to pieces by the belligerent hitting of opening batsman Ravija Sandaruwan and Clinto Anto. They piled on an opening wicket stand of 84 runs in just under 13 overs, when Anto was dismissed for 47 (off just 32 deliveries).
Though Meet Bhavsar was soon also dismissed to leave the Kuwaitis on a score of 85/2, Sandaruwan continued to accumulate boundaries from the other end. He was the chief destroyer in a 160-run partnership with captain Mohammed Aslam, before finally departing for an enormous individual score of 162 from 114 balls, with the score at 255/4, from just 34.2 overs.
Though the Kenyan bowlers were starting to get wickets, the Kuwaiti momentum was enough to carry them to what I suspect is the highest total by any national team at the Ruaraka Sports Club, in a 50-over a side game of 367/9.
Needing to score heavily right from the word go, the Kenya innings never really got any game-changing partnerships going, with opening batsman Subham Patel (57 from 46) the only batsman in the XI to convert his start into anything meaningful. Kenya eventually bowled out for 217 at the end of the 43rd over.
The result means Kuwait seals the second of two berths at the Global World Cup in Nepal Next year, with a game to spare, while Kenya play Papua New Guinea seeking to avoid a bottom-place finish in the league, even as we prepare for relegation to the Cricket World Cup Challenge League Play-off tournament.
In a communication already partially undermined by leakers, Bhavesh Gohil has begun his endeavors to clean up Cricket Kenya with a purge of his own executive board.
The newly elected Cricket Kenya Executive board has wielded the axe on some of its own members, removing several for several reasons, including failure to certify Chapter 6 dcuments, and governance failures. These changes were made in a series of board meetings, whose contents were partially leaked, and were first reported in The Star Newspaper, and the Standard a few days ago
Bhavesh Gohil has seemingly began a deep house cleaning of Cricket Kenya’s Leadership structures
As per the newspaper reporting, Cricket Kenya CEO Ronald Bukusi, and board members Thomas Odoyo, Beryl Oyugi and Mansukh Hirani have been relieved of the duties on the board. Thomas Odoyo, Beryl Oyugi and Mansukh Hirani were relived due to “complaints over the handling of funds, compliance records and the organisation’s proposed affiliation with the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK).” Ronald Bukusi on the other had was fired because of “serious shortcomings in financial accountability, governance and management oversight.”
The newspapers cite a board meeting convened on the 23rd of October, as the source of these decisions. In addition they also report administrative decisions regarding account signatories, and the appointment of Tariq Iqbal as acting CEO, that flow from the removal of the above mentioned board members from their posts.
According to some of the leaked documents this writer has seen, The cited meeting on the 23rd of October was convened online via Microsoft Teams, and was led by Chairman Bhavesh Gohil. In attendance were Vice Chair Pearlyne Omamo, Cricket Sports Club Representative Murtaza Abbas Ebrahimjee, Tariq Iqbal, Sharon Juma, Weldon Cheruiyot Mutai, and Sarah Mayaka (board members).
In that meeting, the status of Thomas Odoyo is discussed as its own specific minuted item, and the board resolved that his appointment to the board was “fundamentally incompatible with the governance structure under the (Cricket Kenya) constitution.”
Thomas Odoyo’s time as Director of Cricket Development may have just come to an end
The board resolves to set up a 3 person sub committee to “competitively recruit” a shortlist of three candidates to replace Thomas Odoyo (who in turn is free to apply for re-appointment to the post). In the interim the board has resolved that Development Manager David Odhiambo Pamba will act as Development Director until a substansive appointment is made.
According to the leaked portion of this meeting’s minutes, the meeting was simply ratifying the decision made to remove the other board members mentioned in the newspaper report, that was made by a previous Board meeting on the 20th October. A meeting whose minutes were also partially leaked online.
In the leaked portion of those minutes, that meeting on the 20th October was also online via Microsoft Teams, and was attended by: Chairman Bhavesh Gohil, Vice Chair Pearlyne Omamo, and board members Tariq Iqbal and Sharon Juma. The leaked portion of these minutes go into significant detail about the specific shortcomings in Thomas Odoyo, Mansukh Hirani vis-a-vis compliance with Chapter 6 document submissions, and resolved that together with Beryl Oyugi, are ineligible to continue serving on the board.
This portion of leaked meeting minutes also addresses the unreported removal from the board of Treasurer Alfred Njuguna, Director of County Associations Damien Omonywa, Director of Women’s Cricket Charity Wambui and board member Pauline Njeru. Their exit from the board is associated with their absence from this particular meeting, an earlier meeting, on the 18th of October, constituting a breach of articles 11.1 (a) and (f) of the Cricket Kenya Constitution and two other meetings not specified in the meetings.
These four members, have 14 days (from the date of the 20th October meeting) to appeal their removal from the board, the absence of which will require the convening of a Special General Meeting to fill their positions.
Additionally, in these minutes Chairman Bhavesh Gohil “regrets” the use of court proceedings to resolve internal disagreements, where internal mechanisms were available.
Whereas, one can commend the boldness of Mr Gohil to make his own board the starting point of an anticorruption cleanup, after all the fish rots from the head, the avilability of some of the more gory details of the purge through a non-solicited leak, rather than through official channels, indicates that there may yet be alot more political infighting in the coming days, weeks and months.
Half centuries from Sachin Gill and Dhiren Gondaria are not enough to save Kenya’s bid to make the 2027 World Cup.
Kenya succumbed to their second consecutive defeat in the final leg of the ICC Challenge League A, falling to Jersey by 123 runs at the Nairobi Gymkhana.
Jersey’s Asa and Zak Tribe were key to their victory over Kenya. (Source: BBC Sport)
Jersey’s victory was built on leg spinner Benjamin Ward’s 5-wicket haul. He accounted for Rakep Patel, Sachin Bhudia, at a time when the Kenyans were still in the game, and Francis Mutua, Shem Ngoche and Peter Langat, to wind up the Kenyan innings, all out for 197
Jersey had won he toss and opted to bat, and they pummelled their way to an imposing Total of 320/7, from their allotted 50 overs. The brothers Asa (72 off 86 balls) and Zak (65 off 67 balls) Tribe provided the backbone of the Jersey innings. For the Kenyans, Sachin Gill was the pick of the bowlers, taking 3 wickets at a cost of 54 runs in 9 overs.
The Kenyan chase began with captain Dhiren Gondaria pillaging a quickfire 55 off 41 deliveries before he was bowled by Tony Britton. Rakep Patel, Irfan Karim and Sachin Bhudia were all dismissed soon after, leaving Kenya’s chase practically dead in the water at 91/5 in the 19th over.
Sukhdeep Singh joined Sachin Gill at the crease, and the two of them were able to put together a 61 run partnership before Sukhdeep lost his wicket for 31. Gill pushed on to a final score of 6o from 61 balls, and when he was dismissed, with Kenya at 194/8, the Kenyan inning essentially died with him.
With the win, Jersey clinched a slot at the Global World Cup Qualifier in Nepal next year, whereas Kenya have two matches to escape the ignominy of a relegation playoff, should they remain among the bottom two teams in this league. They will play Kuwait on the 28th October at Ruaraka, before finishing their against Papua New Guinea on the 31st of October at the same ground.
Kenya snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, in a heartbreaking loss to Qatar, in a World Cup Qualifying match at the Ruaraka Sports Club Ground.
In an inexplicable late collapse, Kenya lost by 4 runs to Qatar in their second match of the third leg of the ICC Challenge League A, Cricket World Cup Qualifiers at the Ruaraka Sports Club Ground.
Owais Ahmed’s nerve at the death sparked an inexplicable 4 wicket collapse from team Kenya (Source: Cricket kenya)
Needing 8 runs from 15 deliveries, team Kenya lost the wickets of Francis Mutua, Shem Ngoche, Sukhdeep Singh, Irfan Karim and then Vraj Patel, in a span of less than 2 overs to turn what was meant to be a straightforward win, against the team bottom of the log, into an upset loss.
Kenya had won the toss and elected to field. Oman’s opening batters Zubair Ali and Shahzeb Afridi set about the powerplay with aplomb, carrying Qatar to an 80-run opening partnership in quick time. It was only the introduction of the spin of Shem Ngoche and Rakep Patel that had any impact on slowing down the scoring rate of the Qataris. Together with several soft dismissals. The Qataris eventually ended up with a total of 283 all out, in a game where they should probably have been aiming for a 300-plus total.
Once again, Dhiren Gondaria was dismissed early in the run chase, and it fell to Subham Patel and Irfan Karim to carry the initial stages of the Kenya run chase. Karim built strong partnerships with Subham Patel (55 runs), Rakep Patel (77 runs), and Sachin Gill (47 runs) to put Kenya in the driver’s seat heading into the death overs.
This is where things began to go south. Irfan Karim was forced off the field with an apparent foot injury, with the score at 244/5. Francis Mutua tried to end the game quickly, with a boundary-laden 33 off 16 balls, only to fall chasing one too many boundaries. This brought Shem Ngoche to the crease with the score at 276/6. He lasted just two deliveries before top-edging a catch to the wicketkeeper.
Sukhdeep Singh was the next to go, slashing an Owais Ahmed half-tracker straight to point, which Irfan Karim came back into the game, only to chop on an Owais Ahmed delivery onto his stumps and be dismissed for 86. Vraj Patel was the last man out, spooning his very first delivery to Mujeeb-ur-Rehman, and handing Qatar the surprise result. Owais Ahmed was the chief architect of the collapse finishing with match figures of 6.5-0-33-4.
The result leaves Kenya and Qatar adrift at the bottom of the Challenge League table on 8 points, with three matches each left to play. Kenya next play top-of-the-table Jersey, and the Gymkhana tomorrow morning.
The Match report of Kenya vs. Denmark in the third leg of the ICC Challenge League.
Carried by the returning Irfan Karim’s steadfast century on 106, Team Kenya began the campaign to salvage their ICC Cricket World Cup Challenge League Group A campaign with a comprehensive 103-run demolition of Denmark at the Nairobi Gymkhana.
The game, which is the first of the final leg of matches, in which the top two teams will qualify for the final stage of qualification to the ICC 50-over World Cup, to be co-hosted by South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, saw Kenya reverse the result of the last meeting between the two teams, a 188-run win for the Danes in Jersey.
Kenya won the toss and chose to bat first, and despite losing captain Dhiren Gondaria early, quickly took the initiative with Irfan Karim and Subham Patel taking the game to the Danes with a 72-run partnership to set the tone for the batting.
Subham lost his wicket for 48 runs soon after the first powerplay. With Karim anchoring the innings, Rakep Patel (57 runs off 65 balls faced), and Sachin Gill (49 off 41) were able to accelerate the Kenyan scoring rate to the point that when Shem Ngoche hit the final ball of the innings for six, Kenya had a commanding 324/7 total to defend.
The Danish response saw opening batsmen lay on a solid 85-run partnership. This would have been a solid enough platform to chase Kenya’s big total, if Kenya’s left-arm spinners Shem Ngoche and Vraj Patel hadn’t strangled the Dane’s scoring rate right down to a point that Shem Ngoche had only conceded 8 runs from his first 5 overs, with 2 maidens.
At this point, the scorecard pressure and some excellent catching in the field saw Kenya’s battery of spinners chip away at the Danish line-up, with Shem Ngoche leading the charge with 3/31 of his 10-over allocation. The last Dane to fall was Nicholsa Sonne-Rudd, who spoonfed a full delivery from Francis Mutua to Vraj Patel in the deep.
The win closes the gap between Kenya, in 5th place (8 points) and Denmark (9 points) before Papua New Guinea face Jersey at the Nairobi Gymkhana, and Qatar play Kuwait at the Ruaraka Sports Club tomorrow morning.
The Football Kenya Federation National Executive Committee has today issued resolutions demanding its chairman, Hussein Mohammed, Abdullahi Yusuf Ibrahim (nominated member) and Dennis Gicheru (acting secretary general) to step aside from their offices on several grounds, including embezzlement of 42 million Kenya Shillings related to CHAN.
FKF President Hussein Mohammed (Source: Capital FM Sports)
Additionally, they have frozen all FKF accounts where Hussein Mohammed is a signatory and called for the appointment of an independent forensic audit of all of FKF’s operations. The full list of accusations against the three officials is summarised as follows:
Systematic exclusion of a majority of NEC members from performing their duties per the FKF Constitution
financial impropriety
misappropriation of 42 million Kenya Shillings from CHAN Bank accounts
serious breaches of the Public Procurement and Disposal Act (2015) and the Public Finance Management Act
Conflict of interest
The Hussein administration came in on a platform of turning around the malaise and mismanagement that had mired his predecessor, Nick Mwendwa’s term. That the same concerns have already dogged this current administration to the point that these senior officials are being asked to step aside is concerning. Earlier this year, the Federation chair had his CEO, Harold Ndege suspended, only for Ndege to contest his ouster in court.
McDonald Mariga has to step up and lead the FKF in these challenging times.
Former Kenya and Inter Milan footballer McDonald Mariga will step up into the chairperson position, in an acting capacity, as investigations continue into Mohammed and the other two NEC members asked to step aside. In addition to these challenges, he will have to take over the final stages of ensuring Kenya’s ability to meet its end of the joint responsibility to host the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations.
Local businessman and cricketing enthusiast Bhavesh Gohil takes charge of Cricket Kenya on a manifesto that promises big changes.
In what was reportedly a landslide election, Bhavesh Gohil has been elected to the Chairmanship of Cricket Kenya. Together with his slate of candidates, Mr Gohil takes over the executive board of Kenya’s cricketing governing board, in a poll that only went ahead at the climax of power struggles between two factions of the outgoing board, in which even the election itself was mired in litigation in the days leading up to it
Bhavesh Gohil elected Cricket Kenya chair after beating Tom Tikolo 38-18 in polls at Ruaraka Sports Club, Nairobi pic.twitter.com/mjqs9ZIOKc
Mr Gohil, a Kenyan businessman and member of the storied Nairobi Gymkhana Club, came to the fore in recent times when he fronted himself as a candidate for Vice-chairperson in a by-election that ultimately was cancelled by the Sports Registrar over the legality of the persons who would have served as the electorate at that time.
Newly elected Cricket Kenya Chairperson Bhavesh Gohil, and newly elected VIce-Chair Pearlyne Omamo (Source: Citizen Digital)
Also elected to the board were Alfred ‘Boi’ Njuguna in the role of treasurer, Damien Omonywa – Director of County Associations, and Charity Wambui as the Director of Women’s Cricket.
In an interview he gave to a local TV station, on the launch of his manifesto, he spoke of prioritising an audit of the finances at Cricket Kenya, though he emphasised that the role of actual punishments, should misconduct arise, was not his but the courts.
He takes over a sports federation with a massive trust deficit with local and international stakeholders, and (according to me) has to engage in some political fighting right from day one if (or when) the forces who tried to stop the poll altogether rush to court to cause even more drama.
In the meantime, he also has to come good on his plans to reimagine player pathways from junior to senior cricket, revive the women’s league and re-establish a Kenya ‘A’ team, and bring in new partners to the game. Should he make progress in these areas, it will go a long way in getting Kenya back into the mix as one the best Associate members in the short term, and possibly re-kindle the remote dreams of eventually progressing to full membership in the ICC, where the real revenues and opportunities lie.
A flurry of court actions has further muddied the waters of the process of bring to a close the leadership challenges bedeviling Cricket Kenya
The lead-up to the election of a new Cricket Kenya Executive Council seems to have run into even more headwinds, as several injunctions and counter-injunctions by competing factions in the incumbent board threaten to derail the entire process.
Former Kenya International and coach David Obuya is among those who have filed suit to stop the election of a new Cricket Kenya Board (Source: Obuya Cricket Academy)
Firstly is an injunction that was granted to a petition filed by former Kenyan International David Obuya and one Juliana Kathure on the 13th of April, in which these petitioners got the Human Rights division of the High Court to issue staying orders on the poll set for the 19th.
On the same day, the ICC recognised faction of the Cricket Kenya board filed a case with the sports dispute tribunal, in which the SDT sanctioned their rival board members, the suspended treasurer, and 19 County Cricket Associations for, essentially failing to honour the arbitration process brokered by the International Cricket Council, and the Government of Kenya (through the Ministry of Sports) the culmination of which would is the election of a fresh Executive board to move the game forward. In this filing, the SDT bars the 19 CCAs and suspends the CK treasurer from engaging in the polls.
In the third court filing that this writer has seen, the SDT provides further directions to the case involving the Cricket Kenya board and its rogue County Associations, requiring that the parties file their documents by the end of today, that the hearing will take place tomorrow morning at 10:00am East African Time.
While all that is going on, Bhavesh Gohil has launched his manifesto for Cricket Kenya, with the support of several coaches and former internationals. The things he commits to: grassroots developments, governance reform, player welfare, infrastructure development, sustainable financial growth and establishment of a high-performance centre, are fantastic things to get at, but as seen with the tenures of Samir Inamdar, Jackie Janmohammed, and Manoj Patel, these things are much easier said than done.
The path to an end of the crisis in Cricket Kenya’s leadership may yet have a few more twists and turns, as the IEP, leaves the fate of Kenya’s cricketing heartland in limbo, ahead of a crucial vote.
The Cricket Kenya Independent Elections Panel has published a list of qualified and disqualified counties, sans Nairobi and Mombasa, in the build-up to the election of the Cricket Kenya Executive board on the 19th of April. The Panel has cleared 19 County Cricket Associations to vote as delegates for the election of a new Cricket Kenya Elections Board, and disqualified 13 other applicant counties, of whom 11 were named.
Robert Bukusi, in his role as Secretary to the IEP, published a list of Counties cleared to contest the Cricket Kenya elections on April 19th (Source:Shujaapride.com)
As reported in the Standard Newspaper, the 19 listed counties were cleared based on registration under the Sports Act, Article 7.1.2 of the Cricket Kenya constitution, evidence of cricketing structures, and a written commitment to comply with the Cricket Kenya Constitution and Sports Act.
Given that these have been the historical heartlands of Cricket in Kenya, it does not bode well for the validity of the elections, or the legitimacy of the board that gets elected, even if they are conducted in full accordance with the letter of the law. That legitimacy with local stakeholders will be important to repairing Cricket Kenya’s standing with the ICC, which has been under scrutiny since a leadership crisis split the incumbent board late last year.
The following counties were cleared to vote: Bungoma, Busia, Embu, Homa Bay, Laikipia, Kajiado, Kakamega, Kiambu, Kilifi, Kirinyaga, Kisii, Kisumu, Kilifi, Makueni, Murang’a, Nakuru, Narok, Nyamira and Vihiga.
The Standard report indicates that there were 13 Counties that applied, and were denied clearance to participate in the poll, naming 11 of them as: Baringo, Bomet, Garissa, Isiolo, Marsabit, Turkana, Kericho, Migori, Samburu, Tana River, and Nandi.
A map of the Counties of Kenya with those approved to take part in the Cricket Kenya Poll in green, and those who applied and failed to qualify highlighted in red
The elephant in the room is the Nairobi and Mombasa County Cricket Associations, who (unless it is an oversight by the Standard Reporter) appear to have ignored, or maybe even boycotted, the electoral process altogether.
Given that these have been the historical heartlands of Cricket in Kenya, it does not bode well for the validity of the elections, or the legitimacy of the board that gets elected, even if they are conducted in full accordance with the letter of the law.
