K-E-N-Y-A...Kenya! © Will Luke

Were it not for the balmy conditions, I could just as well be watching two counties in England in early April - not a one-day international in Nairobi in January. Crowd attendance for the World Cricket League so far has been skimpy, at best; there were 22 certifiable spectators yesterday at the Gymkhana. I counted each one. Today, though, it is positively heaving with close to 50.

It’s a relief. The only noise during the matches so far has roared from the throaty disgust of team coaches, and us enthusiastic anoraks in the press box. Roger Harper has been particularly vocal, using the breezeblock walls of the Jaffreys club as a makeshift (and very effective) megaphone for the opening match of the tournament.

Few locals have been too bothered with it and, from some quarters, there have been mumblings of discontent that the matches haven’t been well publicised. One fervent Scotland fan, travelling with his wife, told me he only knew of the whereabouts of the opening game 12 hours before it started. Incidentally, this was moved forward 24 hours due to a religious holiday, but it’s a shame Cricket Kenya haven’t utilised the local media as best they might.

The local news last night incorrectly advertised today’s game, Kenya’s match against Netherlands, before correcting their mistake a couple of minutes later. Not a major problem, but it’s unnecessarily sloppy. Yesterday’s superb game here between Scotland and Ireland was as good as it gets yet it was watched by next to no one.

Today’s gaggle of schoolchildren – screaming K-E-N-Y-A....Kenya! – makes a welcome change. Let’s hope they stick around for the future, too.

	Scene of the crime © Will Luke

After nearly half-an-hour Joseph, my cabbie, arrived in his Toyota banger. His wreck has just one redeeming feature: you can hear it rattle from about 1km, giving you just enough time to rise from your seat and flag him down in case the brakes aren’t working. Off we set, out of the Gymkhana and down the slip-road onto the main highway, but were abruptly stopped by a 4x4 in front of us who had been halted by a policeman.

Continue reading "The light-fingered policeman"

I like Kenya. The locals might be frustrated by the chaos but, for someone like me, from London – such a regimented city, more intent on watching us, not helping us – the ramshackle way of Nairobi suits me just fine.

“Look, Will,” says David, a man nearly the same height as a Nairobi skyscraper, a scorer for Cricinfo. “We’re going to cross the road here, right in front of this police car. He won’t care. Nobody cares!” So we did, and the packed police car, which had clearly been in more scrapes than was healthy, let us go. This was Nairobi’s main trunk road into the city and we parted the traffic like Moses.

“This is Africa. This is what happens. The police don’t care,” he said, gesticulating with his arms at the police on his right. “You could just as well be arrested for doing nothing as you could for killing someone.” Now, hang on. I know Nairobi is a dangerous place but surely it’s no worse than anywhere else? “It’s all Somalia’s fault. You can get a gun for 6000 shillings (about £40UKP). What sort of a country lets people buy guns so cheap?”

I had no answer. £40 for a gun? That doesn’t even cover my mobile phone bill each month. If I sacrificed my phone I could afford an entire armoury. Gun crime in Britain, in London especially, has risen exponentially in the past decade but the vast majority of people are concerned observers rather than victims.

I’d encountered guns earlier in the day, albeit holstered by a soldier outside the Israeli Embassy. Perfectly reasonable. But even inside an office building late this afternoon, an armed soldier, with a gun far too big for comfort, entered on the 7th floor. It was a stark reminder of the tensions which engulf this city.

I asked David whether he would like a beer on Thursday at the Pavement Club, owned by Shai – a man who knows everyone, even if they’re not totally sure if they know him – but he declined. “I don’t go out. Never. I hate it.” Because of the fear of mugging? “Because I’m low-tier. I’m at right at the bottom. If I go out, I can’t afford to stay long; there are no matutu in the early mornings so I would have to leave early.

“The gap between rich and poor is massive, it’s crazy. Some people can’t even afford to eat. Some rich people earn enough in one day to pay for a poor man’s food for a year.”

	Bermuda were haphazard with their batting ... not that the outside world knew © Will Luke

The conditions were perfect. A cooling breeze took the edge off a sultry day at Jaffrey's Sports Club, the pitch was firm and the players raring to go. Sadly, the opening match of the World Cricket League was an administrative cock-up.

The match itself went smoothly, bar a couple of injuries. Kenya were too controlled with their bowling, Bermuda too haphazard with their batting and a meek total of 133 was never likely to trouble Kenya who romped home with a whopping 31.5 overs to spare, and all their wickets in hand.

But an hour after play had begun there was the very real possibility that the developments on the pitch might not make it out into the public domain. Nervous scribes frantically hunted for a spare donkey, carrier pigeon, pen and paper – anything to replace the equipment provided by Popote, one of the sponsors of the tournament and the official provider of telecommunications for the media.

Continue reading "Pass the pigeon, please"

	The Nairobi Club: home for two weeks © Cricinfo Ltd

In the taxi, when Daniel cheerily announced we had arrived at the Club, I was in two minds. The walls outside were steep and stained. Fortress-like from the outside, it oozed Victorian England on the inside. If anything, it reminded me of an English school; dark, looming wood panels on the walls, on the floor, and a large oak table in the “informal” dining room. Hopefully the food won’t consist solely on a variant of cabbage and spludge (the only word to describe that school staple, concrete porridge).

Revealingly, there were posters advertising the World Cricket League dotted around our journey to the Club - interspersed with mobile phone companies demanding our money and, bizarrely, a large mural of Tower Bridge in London.

After a long build up, things were really on the move today with two press conferences at the Nairobi Hilton this afternoon and a terrific opening ceremony at Parklands Sports Club in the evening. Cultural dancers were promised (for the opening ceremony, I hasten to add), and even managed to lure some of the Scotland and Bermudan players onto the dance floor. It wasn’t pretty, but it was very entertaining. Simon Cowell would’ve thrown a hissy fit.

	A trio of commemorative cakes - the profiterole mountain is for Justin Langer © Andrew Miller

For if there is one thing that the Australians do better than cricket, it is sentimentality. For instance, it is now 23 years since Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh all bowed out in the same Sydney Test against Pakistan, and we still haven't heard the end of it. Mind you, this match might just do what 2005 did for 1981 and bump that one down the list a notch or two.

Continue reading "Cakes, texts and tenors"