What a shame Kenyan cricket has gone to the dogs

Kenyans love sports, but as a country, Kenya has never had what can genuinely be termed as a national sport.

Yes, we are world beaters in athletics, but it takes the biennial World Athletics Championships and the Olympic Games – which come around every four years – to truly pique the interest of the average Kenyan athletics ‘fan’.

In between, one of those legs of the World Marathon Majors in Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York often suffices, especially when one Eliud Kipchoge is in the reckoning. So nope, athletics isn’t our national sport!

It could have been football, only if we had been fairing much better than the sorry state of the game in the country. But Kenyans deserve some credit for their undying love for a sport that they are so poor in.

They passionately talk about the game in offices, bars, market places, barber shops – everywhere. Heck, the younger “xaxa” generation in their midst are even known for wagering their parents’ life savings on some improbable match results.

Yet, we remain hopelessly woeful in football. Just look at Harambee Stars! There has never been anything to write home about the team.

Sorry folks, I hate being the bearer of bad news, but football has never been our national sport. At best, it can only pass off for a national pastime. Yes, we indulge in the sport just to pass time.

I could say the same about hockey, volleyball – specifically the women’s teams – and rugby (read the men’s 7s national team).

Sadly, the three sporting disciplines have over the years only flattered to deceive. We are still stuck in a rut. So strike volleyball and rugby off that list of Kenyan national sport.

Which leaves us with one sport. As unpopular as it may sound, if there is one sport that deserves to be our national sport, then cricket it is.

Yes, cricket. In terms of pedigree, player exposure and level of achievement, no Kenyan team sport comes close to what the national cricket team has achieved over the years.

If I’m wrong, then tell me any of our national teams that has ever been to five consecutive World Cups, the latest as recent as 2011? Has there been any other sporting discipline in the country that has ever hosted and won a match at the World Cup? Show me any other sport in Kenya that has ever produced a true superstar who is more popular abroad than at home, as was the case with the likes of Maurice Odumbe, Steve Tikolo and Asif Karim a few years ago?

I could go on and on. I will say it, just for the records. The game of cricket is largely unappreciated by the Kenyan masses, but this is the one team sport that holds the greatest potential.

Tragically, since the staggering heights that the team reached in 2003, when Kenya got to the semis of the ICC Cricket World Cup, it has been a downwards spiral.

From loudly banging on the door of the exclusive club of Test-playing nations, our once highly-respected team nowadays gets spanked on a regular basis by the likes of our noisy neigbours across Busia border.

We are in such as depressed state. Not even the new Cricket Kenya office has made things any better.

Which is why I understood the frustrations of some officials of the Nairobi Provincial Cricket Association (NPCA) who I was privileged to meet early this week. This is how they summed it up: “We have to put an end to this!”

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