More board bashing from a familar direction

Once again, the Nation’s Chris Tsuma has used his newspaper to continue his vendetta against the board of Cricket Kenya. A fortnight ago we highlighted a number of instances where the paper carried slanted reports about the board, and Tsuma, whose reaction to cricticism is well documented, is back.

On Monday, he quoted Roger Harper, Kenya’s coach, who made some fair observations of the state of the domestic game. But Tsuma, who it should be stressed has made no attempt to contact Samir Inamdar, Cricket Kenya’s chairman, for his side of the story, really warmed to his task on Tuesday.

“Despite pre-election pronouncements to the contrary by the Cricket Kenya incumbents, the board has yet to do anything to improve the quality of domestic competition or start a national competition in any forms of the game,” Tsuma wrote.

For the umpteenth time – and it really happens too often for it to be an oversight – Tsuma chooses to ignore the fact that the Kenyan Cricket Association, the predecessors of the current board, left a legacy of debts totaling $500,000, no sponsors, and a sport so sullied that no commercial entities would touch it. Against this backdrop, it is trying to rebuild while existing on an annual grant of $70,000 from the ICC.

Tsuma quotes a Nairobi Provincial Cricket Association official as saying that “clubs are struggling to cope without any form of support from Cricket Kenya”. Given the budgetary difficulties, what is expected?

We can only repeat the question we have asked many times. Why is the Nation’s sports desk following this overtly critical agenda when it was so silent when so much was going wrong when the old KCA were in power. Why did it not rush out to speak to NPCA officials when the association was chucked out of the KCA in 2002? And we all know that Tsuma and his ilk think things are dire, but why have they not once come up with any suggestions for a way ahead? And why do they not speak to board officials? All that is asked for is balance. Don’t hold your breath.