Cricket Kenya hire Pakistani match analyst

Cricket Kenya have hired the services of a Pakistani match analyst, Sajid Yasin Hashmi.

Hashmi, who is on his first assignment in an African country, has been contracted by CK on a short term basis to help the national team qualify for the 2019 World Cup.

The qualifiers are set for Zimbabwe in March but teams must first go through a pre-qualifier.

Hashmi was at the Nairobi Gymkhana on Sunday where he watched the home team fight it out with Stray Lions for this year’s Nairobi Provincial Cricket Association (NPCA) Twenty20 trophy.

He was accompanied by Stray Lions club secretary, Thota Srinivas, a former cricket analyst for the national team.

When asked if he played cricket at the national level in Pakistan, Hashmi said: “My family believed in education, therefore, I did not get chance to play match cricket in my youth. I played club cricket and represented the city of Lahore in domestic games.”

On his experience as a match analyst, he said: “I was the analyst for Pakistan Women’s team for eight years and served Lahore cricket for seven years.”

Hashmi will travel with the Kenyan team that will leave for Zimbabwe on Thursday.

The national team will be  in Zimbabwe for 10 days where they will play one Twenty20 game and four 50-overs matches as Zimbabwe “A” as part of their preparation for the ICC World Cricket League Division Two.

Five teams, Canada, Oman, Kenya, UAE, Nepal and hosts Namibia will fight it out for the two slots reserved for the group in the 2019 World Cup qualifier set for Zimbabwe in March. Nairobi Gymkhana’s Karan Kaur, a right-hand batsman, who had been dropped from the national side is back.

He replaces his Gymkhana teammate, Peter Koech, while Hiren Varaiya, a slow left-arm orthodox bowler and right hand batsman, who is also Stray Lions captain, has come out of international retirement and been called up.

Hiren hanged his boots in September 2014. He has replaced Pushpak Kerai (Kanbis) a left-arm bowler who failed to impress in international assignments.

Kenya squad: Rushab Patel (Gymkhana), Gurdeep Singh (Sikh Union), Dhiren Gondaria (Kanbis), Irfan Karim (Swamibapa), Collins Obuya (Stray Lions), Rakep Patel (Kanibs) team captain, Nelson Odhiambo (Kanbis) Shem Ngoche (Stray Lions),  Nehemiah Odhiambo (Stray Lions), Emmanuel Bundi (Swamibapa), Lucas Oluoch (Gymkhana), Alex Oband (Swamibapa), Karan Kaur (Gymkhana) and Hiren Varaiya (Stray Lions).