When David slayed Goliath

A Kenya versus West Indies match in the World Cup would not normally attract much fanfare except maybe from the Kenyan side. So a crowd of 5000 at the Nehru stadium in Pune was a good one. Had more in the city of Pune known what lay ahead, surely thousands more would have thronged the venue!

But not knowing what will happen is what makes the "gloriously uncertain" game that it is! And in this case, even Kenya would agree with that! West Indies won the toss and put Kenya in to bat. At 81/6, it all seemed to have been done and dusted with for the West Indies. But an unknown Hitesh Modi (26) with a 17-year-old Thomas Odoyo (24) forged a min-revival putting on 44 valuable runs. A couple of smaller partnerships also aided the Kenyans as the managed to huff and puff their way to 166. Surely not enough to defend against a batting line-up that had Lara, Chanderpaul, Arthurton, Richardson and Adams!

The top-scorer for Kenya, though, were Extras; 35 of them! Even though the Kenyan team was bowled out for 166 in 49.3 overs, the West Indian bowlers had conceded 27 extra balls through wides and no-balls. Such was the state of their performance.

For the West Indies, though, this was a tough World Cup. They were a team that was in a mess. Richie Richardson was under pressure to relinquish his post as captain and Brian Lara looked least interested in proceedings. And it all showed in their performance. When Lara fell for just 8, easing a ball as if he were batting in the nets, West Indies had slumped to 33/3. Still no cause for alarm bells considering the small target and the batting to follow, one would think. But the West Indies batsmen simply refused to buckle down.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul with 19 Roger Harper with 17 were the only batsmen to reach double figures. The third double-figure contributor was "Extras" with 17! The Windies, two-time champions, were skittled out for 93 by a minnow. At the time, this was the biggest upset in one-day international cricket (to be later replaced by Bangladesh's win over Australia!) and for the ecstatic Kenyans, who even did a lap of honour, it was "like winning the World Cup".

Richardson's job was in further and now, real danger. Things went from bad to worse after rumours came about that Lara had told the Kenyans he didn't mind losing to them as much as he did to "white teams". Although he said his comments had been taken out of context, he apologised.

The West Indies team was perhaps at their lowest point in almost five years that their decline had started and it wasn't going to get better any time soon…

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Published on Mar 8, 2007