ICC CWCQ: Hapless Kenya suffer another defeat after Kuwait walloping
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Reading Time: 2min | Wed. 02.10.24. | 19:07
Lameck Onyango's side now has two games to salvage itself from a poor show in its home tournament
Kenya’s men’s cricket national team fundamentals on both sides of the ball were ruthlessly exposed on Wednesday as the hosts made it back-to-back defeats after falling to Kuwait by 97 runs in an ICC Cricket World Cup Challenge League A match played at the Ruaraka Sports Club.
Primed as a fixture that Kenya would “get basics rights” after narrowly losing out to Denmark last Sunday, the home side was no match to a decent Kuwait side that was also seeking to bounce back from its own dismal defeat to Jersey on Tuesday.
On a cloudy mid-morning, nothing seemed to work for Lameck Onyango’s side as they once again failed to connect on the bowling end, despite skipper Shem Ngoche referring to it as an area of concern.
Following Meet Bhavsar’s dismissal in the first over by debutant Gerard Mwendwa, Kenya’s battery of bowlers failed to lay their imprints on the game, with another dropped catch on top-scorer Ravja Sandaruwan (52-ball 67) proving costly.
The unit only looked to gather surprising steam once in the entire innings, when they took three wickets in three overs, catching out the mid-order batsmen.
Vraj Patel first forced Usman Patel to a sliced shot that was gathered by Lucas Ndandason, before Ngoche took out Yassin Patel (33) in similar fashion.
The last of the blitz-wicket action came when Pushkar Sharma bowled out skipper Mohamed Aslam for just seven runs, before Kuwait steadied themselves to an astonishing 312/8.
In reply, Kenya’s batting also took that sorry face of desperation as new opener Rushab Patel and Dhiren Gondaria were dismissed inside the first nine overs.
Sharma, to his credit, kept a slim fire burning, but was taken out once he got to his half-century, leaving the on-looking crowd dazzled.
New-comer Irfan Karim didn’t stay long enough, while Rakep Patel (23 off 34 balls) and Sachin Bhudia (5) fell to the sword of Mohammed Aslam, who took three wickets in total.
Sachin Gill, for his impressive work (44 runs), couldn’t find a partner to dig in with, with Ngoche also being caught out on an Aslam fastball that grazed the stumps behind him.
And when Gill finally fell, the onus was on Ndandason and rookie Mwendwa to window dress.
That’s not how play was supposed to be, and yet there they were, huffing and puffing against the visitors to a paltry 215 after 41.2 overs.
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