Triangular Tournament
South Africa v Kenya
Sunday, October 7, 2001

Kenya were a trifle unfortunate to get a bad pitch for their first match in this tri-series. Lesser teams, I have noticed, often have problems on pitches such as these, especially against the slower ball. The South Africans bowled plenty of those, and the Kenyans struggled to get them away.

Another problem lesser teams have at this level is trying to keep their wickets intact while accelerating the run rate. As long as they don't take risks, and chug along at two or three an over, they look in no trouble. But the moment they try to accelerate towards four or five an over, they start losing wickets. We saw this happen today - Kenya were going at between two and three an over when when Steve Tikolo and Maurice Odumbe were batting, but they began losing wickets as soon as they tried to push things along.

This was a poor performance even by Kenyan standards, though I must say I liked the look of Tikolo. I have been watching him for ten years now, and have been immensely impressed by his sheer raw talent. If he'd been playing for any other country, he would certainly have made a bigger name for himself by now.

What has especially impressed me is that he has not tried to polish that raw talent too much, but has kept faith in his strengths. He uses his wrists and his arms extremely well. His footwork or the position of his body while playing the ball are not too important for him - he has a great eye and he relies on that. He has been very consistent over the years, something one can't say for any of his team-mates.

I feel the reason Kenya haven't been able to make much of an impact at this level is that they don't have anybody else who is even remotely close to Tikolo as a batsman. If they had a couple of players who were anywhere near his class, they could have achieved far more in international cricket. But he has got no support at all from his team-mates.

South Africa should win this match at a canter. The Kenyans play a lot of one-day cricket at home, and if their bowlers utilise these conditions well, with the ball occasionally keeping low at an uncertain pace, then they might test Kirsten and Co. a bit. But even that won't be enough to alter the result of the match.

Sanjay Manjrekar, mainstay of the Indian batting in the late '80s and early '90s, was talking to Amit Varma. He will be commenting after each session of the one-day series.

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