Behind the mask

For every new kid in the cricket playground, Sri Lanka remain the blue-eyed boy to emulate. Just 15 years after being granted Test status, Sri Lanka were champions of the world, emphatically brushing aside Australian resistance at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore in 1996. Since then, the likes of Kenya - who defeated West Indies in that same tournament - and Bangladesh, who stunned Pakistan in England three years later, have often cited the Sri Lankan example as they argued for more than the slim pickings that came their way.

Steve Tikolo was scathing in his criticism of the International Cricket Council and also of South Africa, his continent's premier cricket force, when he bemoaned his team's lack of exposure since their astonishing run to the World Cup semi-finals in 2003. Ahead of Kenya's second game against Pakistan, he said, "You need to come to these tournaments when you are in form. To play the top teams once in a year or two years is not good enough. You come here and they make you look bad."

And having thanked the West Indies for allowing Kenya to take part in their domestic competition earlier this year, he trained his ire on South Africa. "There's not been any support coming from them. I'd like to have imagined they would have invited Kenya to take part in their domestic league, but that has not been forthcoming since 2000."

On the surface, there is immense sympathy for Kenya's plight. Sourav Ganguly and Inzamam-ul-Haq are among those who have indicated that they deserve more games against the top sides. As always, the ICC is a convenient villain, the stationary target to throw darts at.

The problem with Kenyan cricket, though, is what lies beneath, and those aware of the facts understand the ICC's predicament. The Champions Trophy, then called the ICC Knockout, was staged in Nairobi in 2000 as part of the plan to promote cricket - and develop infrastructure - in countries where it wasn't a national passion. But the organisation of the event was a shambles, so poor in fact that a senior ICC official was heard to swear that there would never again be such a tournament there.

And of late, foreign tours haven't been an option either, given that the Kenyan Cricket Association has apparently frittered away its finances. Two weeks after the World Cup last year, Kenya were invited to Sharjah. The players threatened strike action when they were offered what they argued was a paltry sum to go, and eventually made the trip only because a local businessman underwrote their expenses.

Corruption in Kenyan sport reached such atrocious levels under the Daniel Arap Moi regime that FIFA were compelled to expel the Kenyans after a tussle for power between the government and the football federation. But having done their best to clean up football - which was rife with shady financial deals, and cheating at age-group tournaments - the sports ministry turned their attention to cricket.

What they found was just as murky a picture. When Ehsan Mani and Malcolm Speed journeyed to Nairobi in April, the sports minister sent a car to pick them up from the airport, just so that he could speak to them before they met any representatives of the KCA. The sports ministry then presented evidence highlighting the corruption within the game, proof so convincing that it prompted Mani to speak out, saying that there was no question of Test status unless things were cleaned up.

At the lower level, Kenyan cricket is a disorganised mess. The national league set up by the KCA exists only in name, and the board spends most of its time waging war against the private clubs and the players. Whatever money has been paid by the ICC as part of its development programme has been used to pay players' salaries. Once the ICC cottoned on, it withheld the money.

Since Tusker's sponsorship deal with the KCA expired, the board has found it almost impossible to secure a replacement, so unwilling are companies to be seen supporting such a shambolic set-up. Young players literally have to beg for equipment from abroad, since the development money has never filtered down to them. Whatever talent there is at the junior level is self-taught and self-motivated. There is no A team, and as a result, promising youngsters are expected to make the step up from the Nairobi league to facing Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar overnight.

It hasn't helped Kenya's cause that they don't have a cricket culture comparable to that of Sri Lanka, or even Bangladesh. Sri Lanka had players like Mahadevan Sathasivam being feted and compared to Sir Donald Bradman four decades before they earned Test status, while Bangladesh, for all the criticism coming their way, have unearthed talent like Nafis Iqbal, Mashrafe Mortaza and Mohammad Ashraful in recent times.

In Kenya's case, with the exception of Collins Obuya - who sparkled at the last World Cup - and Ragheb Aga, a promising medium-pace bowler, there is very little talent coming into a side that is increasingly resembling Dad's Army. Maurice Odumbe has been lost to alleged match-fixing, and Steve Tikolo will soon walk away into the sunset. Aasif Karim, so instrumental in that World Cup adventure, has already gone.

The sympathy and supportive soundbites that have come Kenya's way have been motivated largely by ignorance. The core of Kenyan cricket has been rotting for far too long, and unless it's removed, dreams of Test status and sepia-tinted images of World Cup glory will be all that the country is left with. For the sake of men like Tikolo, perhaps the finest batsman produced by a non-Test-playing nation, one can only hope that such a scenario doesn't come to pass.