When Bangladesh beat Sri Lanka earlier this week, Bangladesh showed there is fight and pride in one of the minnows. On the other side of the world tomorrow, the other minnow hosts a ODI series against supposedly even smaller-fry.
There has already been controversy before a bowl is even bowled in the series. The Zimbabweans tried, without telling the Kenyans, to reduce the series from five games to three. Reasons speculated for this include that if the Kenyans win the series, they will leapfrog the Zimbabweans on the ICC ODI ratings list and that the Zimbabweans don't have enough money for a five-match series. The ICC pressured them back into playing the five matches.
CricInfo has a good summary of the history of games between the two countries. However, history will count little for the upcoming series. Kenya toured in October last year, playing Zimbabwe A (which included Heath Streak and Tatenda Taibu) - they won the series 3-0. Kenya has come through the other end of a bitter players' strike and now seems to be back on the right track. Zimbabwe Cricket's disintegration is still continuing. Terry Duffin, new captain for Zimbabwe has never played a ODI.
The teams play on February 25 and 26 in Bulawayo and on March 1, 3 and 4 in Harare. My prediction: a 5-0 whitewash for Kenya.
Friday, 24 February 2006
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Unfortunately, the inexperienced Zimbabwe side turned out to have a few more teeth than we thought. Hopefully Kenya can come back today and make a better fist of it.
The series is now level at 1-1. I still think Kenya will win the series. The question is: will it be used as a catalyst for getting Kenya more matches (e.g. against Bangladesh) or a further argument for exclusion of Zimbabwe? The follow-up for Zimbabwe from this series is a 7-ODI series in the West Indies. For the WIndies, would they get a more competitive series against Kenya?
My favourite quote from CricInfo is that the 2nd game: "reopened all the doubts as to whether this raw Zimbabwe side has what it takes to compete at the highest level." I wouldn't exactly call Zimbabwe vs Kenya cricket at the "highest level".
with the series at 2-1 in Kenya's favour so far, hopefully it will be a catalyst for more matches. Kenya have 4 lined up in March vs Bangladesh already, but there have been faint rumours of Pakistan later in the year (no idea when they could fit it in though).
I think Windies Kenya could be a fairly good series. Better than Windies vs. Zim anyhow. Unlikely to happen unfortunately.
Still hopefully by the WC, Kenya will have enough cricket under our belts to give you guys and the poms a good fight against us.
Post a Comment