Government looks to bypass KCA

The battle between the Kenyan Cricket Association and the country's stakeholders took another twist this weekend with the revelation that the government is forming a new organisation to run the game.

It had been hoped that last week's court hearing in Nairobi would bring an end to years of bitter infighting inside Kenya, but legal delays, which seemed to be almost entirely at the whim of a High Court judge, meant that the hearing will now not be heard until March. It seems that was the final straw for Ochillo Ayacko, the minister for sports, and The Nation, which has followed a pro-KCA line throughout much of this dispute, is reporting that the government, which suspended the KCA last month, has decided to bypass the old regime altogether.

Officially, the ICC has stayed on the sidelines throughout this whole affair, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it has been involved behind the scenes and, as previously reported here, has held meetings with Ayacko about how best to proceed. Many inside Kenya actually believe that his decision to move against the KCA was accelerated by ICC support. It also seems unlikely that Ayacko would undertake such a bold move without consulting the ICC as to its position - ICC rules state that it will only deal with the body recognised by the relevant government as being in charge of the game inside a country.

The Nation reported that a meeting, chaired by Ayacko, was held at Kasarani on Sunday and that an application will be made this week for the new body to be registered. "We are not interfering with KCA," Sammy Obingo, the former KCA general manager, told the newspaper. "They can continue with their affairs."

Such a move would render the old Sharad Ghai-led KCA an irrelevance. It has no sponsors and is, to all intents and purposes, insolvent. The ICC, which is its main source of funding, is understood to have suspended payments pending the resolution of the dispute, and senior figures inside Kenya have confirmed that there is no money to meet even the most urgent of liabilities.

It seems inconceivable that Ghai will not challenge the minister's move, but it would be hard to see how a court could rule against a body backed by the government and almost all the country's stakeholders in favour of an organisation which is broke and has such a dismal record of failure and mismanagement.

This is certainly not be the final chapter of this whole sorry tale, but it could be a decisive turning point.