Maurice Odumbe analyses Kenya's World Cup prospects
Tony Munro - 2 April 1999

During the last World Cup star Kenya batsman, Maurice Odumbe, had to remind Brian Lara that they had met previously.

Now not just Lara, but most of the cricketing fraternity knows Kenya needs to be watched, and Odumbe wishes his team could regain its former anonymity as it goes into its second World Cup, with its surprise element removed by that famous victory over Lara's West Indies team.

"I met Lara at a match in England several years ago before he was in the West Indies team and asked for his autograph. He said he didn't have the time. When we beat them in the World Cup I went up to him and said 'A few years ago I asked for your autograph and you wouldn't give it. Now I am saying you can have mine.'"

While that also reflects Odumbe the person, it also mirrors why he feels it will be difficult for Kenya to pull off another surprise win over a Test-playing nation.

"It won't be as easy - they won't take us as lightly. They know more about us." If the West Indies had not conceived the possibility of a Kenyan win, then according to Odumbe, they weren't the only team that day.

"We were going out for a picnic. It was only when they started losing wickets that we began to get serious." Naturally enough for Odumbe it remains a highlight.

"To have Richie Richardson come into our dressing room after the match was special. I mean, we had only ever seen those guys before on video," Odumbe said.

The 29 year-old is still amazed that he is mixing it with his heroes. "I wear a Steve Waugh T-shirt around and here I am meeting these people. Taking into account my background, I never thought I'd play in a World Cup."

It is this background which not so long ago would have made an African's appearance in the Kenyan team an oddity. "My elder brother Kenneth Odhiambo Odumbe was the first indigenous player to represent Kenya. What we have done has proven to our African brothers that cricket has a lot to offer and given them something to emulate. Thanks to cricket I have seen the world," Odumbe said.

For Odumbe it was his way ahead in more ways than one.

"Cricket paid for my school fees. My mother didn't have the money for the fees and the local club paid for them," Odumbe added.

"I first got into cricket because my parents worked for the government and there was a ground nearby where I was a ballboy.

"We played in the street with a plank of wood for a bat, a dustbin for wickets and a ball made out of maize coir.

"I used to play rugby and soccer. I went with Kenneth to play cricket at the local ground. I used to enjoy watching him because he was a slogger and about the age of 12 I realised I could play so I stayed with cricket.

"I liked cricket when I was young because it is a tough game. Kapil Dev came here and I saw him bowl and hit a guy in the eye. I admired rugby players because of there toughness and that's what I liked about cricket. "I enjoy watching a guy like Glenn McGrath come into bowl."

The fact that rugby is Odumbe' s favourite sport ("I love the physical contact"), reflects accurately the characteristics in the man who answers questions with the frankness similar to a ball-and-all tackle.

One of players who is going to have to shine if Kenya is to emulate its 1996 World Cup success, Odumbe spoke openly in a wide-ranging interview during training in Nairobi this week.

While dismayed at losing three times to Zimbabwe, Odumbe said it may have done the team some good.

"We're disappointed - we wanted to beat Zimbabwe - we knew beating Bangladesh would be no problem but we thought we could beat Zimbabwe.

"The MCC team came out here and we beat them and we had fake ideas about where we stand as a team.(Losing to Zimbabwe) was a kick in the backside for us." Odumbe said.

"Their fielding was better than ours. They bowled a tight line. Also they used reverse sweeps a lot and we didn't know how to counter that."

While grateful for what cricket has done for him, Odumbe remains somewhat disappointed at his team's lack of recognition.

"It is disappointing. We've been made professionals and we're not being treated like professionals. From the government down, we have not been given the recognition we deserve. Cricket is the only team sport where Kenya will have played at two World Cups."