Restore sanity in cricket
What you need to know:
- There has been acrimony after details of a draft constitution were leaked to the public.
There seems to be no reprieve from wrangles in Kenyan cricket with, for the umpteenth time, the disquiet in the sport landing in court.
After the one year the High Court had given Cricket Kenya’s interim board to come up with a new constitution and organise elections under the Sports Act 2013 lapsed on May 31, a group led by former cricket international player Kennedy Obuya and Harpal Singh sought legal redress.
Before that, there has been acrimony after details of a draft constitution were leaked to the public.
Apparently, the document gave the incumbents, who have served two terms, leeway to run for office again, in contravention of the Sports Act’s limit of tenure.
Obuya’s group claims there is a vacuum after the interim board’s tenure elapsed and that the development of domestic cricket and welfare of national team players have been left unaddressed.
This stalemate should be resolved once and for all if Kenya is to restore its erstwhile glory that saw our national team on the verge of joining the elite Test cricket nations, most memorably reaching the Cricket World Cup semi-finals in 2003 in South Africa.
The sport needs to shift from courtroom to crease and we should see development programmes up and running once sporting activities resume with the coronavirus lockdown lifted.
It is disheartening to see Kenya plummet in the world rankings from the threshold of elite cricket to the nondescript fourth tier. Such collapse has been triggered by selfish interests, lack of foresight and absence of youth development programmes that would have helped the sport to sustain the pedigree that produced legends like Steve Tikolo, Maurice Odumbe, Ravindu Shah and Asif Karim, to mention but a few.
