ICC refuses to allow postponement

Despite the chaos inside Kenyan cricket, the International Cricket Council has refused an application from the Kenyan Cricket Association to postpone the country's ICC Intercontinental Cup tie against Namibia schedule to take place at Windhoek between February 25 and 27.

Sharad Ghai, the embattled chairman of the KCA, made the approach to the ICC against a backdrop of total confusion inside Kenya. Out of the squad of 31 named for the match, 14 remain on strike, others have yet to be officially told of their selection, and training has ground to a halt as there is no money to pay coaches or for facilities to enable the few players that are around to train. Despite claims from the KCA that the squad is training, Cricinfo knows that the remaining players have yet to all assemble.

"We feel that we need to field our strongest team for this championship and that is why we sought to have the game postponed," Ghai told The Nation. "The ICC has said no and even the Namibians are not willing to consider it." The newspaper report adds that a senior KCA offical described the ICC as "an organisation which preaches water and drinks wine ... the leaders of world cricket prescribe for others medicine that they themselves find too bitter to swallow."

Ghai, who has been indirectly criticised by the ICC, hit back in the light of the publication of a letter from Malcolm Speed which appeared to encourage Ochillo Ayacko, the sports minister, to take action against the KCA.

"It is convenient for the ICC to have Kenya in crisis so that they don't have to worry about what to do with our attempts to gain Test status," Ghai said. "The issues which the minister is reported to have raised with the ICC in those letters last year have been raised so many times in the past and we have always responded to them and asked anyone with evidence of wrongdoing, including the ICC, to produce it.

"When one looks at FIFA's governance, it is based on the system of one country one vote. It could be argued that the ICC structure is not democratic. However, as that is what the constitution states, all members are bound by the terms thereof."