Chasing Hair

A terrific day for Kenya, one they fully deserve to enjoy. They were the pre-tournament favourites, undoubtedly, but wanted to win just that little bit extra. It meant a lot to them – that much was obvious.

I’ve been so impressed with their spirit, not to mention skill. When Maurice Ouma needlessly ran himself out today his partner, David Obuya, flung his bat in the air several metres behind his head. Isolated, the incident smacked of the bad, old, petulant Kenya. But actually, it was the new, fighting, don’t-waste-your-wicket-away Kenya; they don’t just want to win, but win well. It is a hugely encouraging sign and Roger Harper deserves credit for instilling in them this new fighting spirit.

The day was blighted somewhat by the news that Darrell Hair was to sue the ICC and Pakistan Cricket Board. We weren’t expecting it (nor was Darrell, to be fair) and the news came through at about 10.30 Kenya time (07.30GMT), around the time Scotland were throwing away the cup. I bumped into a vaguely familiar face, or one I thought I recognised: Adam Mynott, the BBC’s East Africa correspondent who had been dispatched on the same mission: to extract information from Hairstone. I knew both of us would lose, and so we did.

Some of the media, me included, made the most of the post-match celebrations by joining in the traditional photographers-scrum; a messy mass of elbows, jostling and swearing preceded by flashing cameras, ably led by Ian Jacobs, a seasoned Scot who’s kindly been lending Cricinfo his photos. But we were due upstairs for Darrell’s press conference and missed the beginning of Kenya’s party.

After setting up a brilliant makeshift press conference – a tiny card table, one chair to the backdrop of a very old ping pong table – the main man arrived. Cameras were pointed; lighting went up; laptops were opened and Dictaphones thrown onto the table. “Sorry to do this to you,” he said, “but it’s been re-scheduled for 6pm. At The Hilton.” The press corps can move at apace when they want to; the cameras were dismounted and everyone sprinted out, wary of Nairobi’s notorious traffic. It all went smoothly at The Hilton, although hosting it on the landing of the first floor was decidedly crap. At least our ping pong tables lent some class to proceedings, however aging...

My evening chats with the wonderfully named Newton Maina, one of the waiters at the Club, have been nothing short of revelatory. On tonight’s verbal menu came elephants. Newton lives “just down the road” – 260km down the road. “Yes, elephants are very huge. We killed one!” he announced. I’m from Britain, a country where you’re not really allowed to do, say, eat or kill anything unless our Tony tells us to. Not so here. “It was a nuisance and a danger to our village,” Newton told me, “so we had to kill it” which seems reasonable enough. It fed over 300 people, each of whom had enough meat for three days. I hope Tesco aren’t reading, let alone Waitrose...or, indeed, the chef here.