NAIROBI, Dec.11 (Xinhua) -- Stakeholders in cricket have decried the lack of interest in the game in Kenya at present.
Peter Ong'ondo, former Kenyan international who joined cricket as a ball boy and grew the game from there, said that in the early days, raw passion came ahead of pay for the players unlike presently when most of the players join cricket because of what they can make out of the game.
"During my stint on the technical bench as a member of the coaching staff, only a handful of players would make the effort to come for nets practice, whereas the rest needed to be pushed," Ong'ondo told Xinhua on Wednesday.
"The men are the complete opposite of their women counterparts who have shown passion and dedication towards the game and their 6 am to 8 am training session every time attracts a full house," he noted.
Subhash Modi, former international cricket umpire, said Cricket Kenya has lost goodwill from stakeholders owing to lack of transparency, accountability and meritocracy, adding that people fight for leadership positions at the association for a selfish reason and vested interests as opposed to the good of the sport.
"Players have become lazy because they know that whether they attend practice sessions or not, they will still be picked to join the national team because there is a small pool of players from which to select the national team. Previously, players would put in five to six days of practice per week," Modi said.
Alfred Njuguna, who runs a cricket program, said when Kenya was playing top-tier cricket, the country received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the International Cricket Council (ICC) for development, unlike today's 5 million shillings (50,000 U.S. dollars) which is hardly enough to keep the national team together.
David Waters, who uses cricket for humanitarian purposes in Kenyan schools, said the speed with which Kenya is plunging down in international rankings is unprecedented.
When Kenya defeated two-time World Cup winners, West Indies during the 1996 Cricket World Cup, it was described as the greatest upset in cricket world history and pundit said Kenya was poised for a dining seat at the table with the best in the world.
Stakeholders were in agreement that the country had the talent and the ability and with a good development program, Kenya would indeed be given Test status. When Kenya made it to the cricket World Cup semi-final during the 2003 it was hoped that administrators would build the game from there, which was not the case.
