Why Rayani should take a back seat

As the current crisis inside Kenyan cricket rumbles on, criticism about the way the Kenyan Cricket Association has been run in recent years has grown more vocal by the week.

Inside Kenya, opponents of the KCA identify Sharad Ghai, the association's chairman, as being Public Enemy No. 1. But while few doubt that he has been the driving force behind the KCA for several years, the facts are that he has only been chairman since May. Ghai took over the role on the resignation of Jimmy Rayani, having previously been fixtures secretary, although he carried more sway than such a modest title might suggest.

Rayani had been chairman of the board since 1994, and under his tenure Kenya had made considerable progress, growing from a cricketing backwater to the verge of a Test nation. But he had also been at the helm during the period that almost all the financial and management concerns currently being investigated by the Kenyan authorities - and also, it is believed, closely scrutinised by the ICC - took place. It was Rayani who headed the board, and whatever his involvement in the daily dealings - and there is nothing to suggest that he was actually involved - there is no overlooking the fact that he was in charge.

Rayani is an intelligent man who, until recently, ran a legal firm in Nairobi. As chairman of the KCA, it is reasonable to expect that he was aware of what was happening. It was during his tenure that controversial deals with Media Plus, a rights firm run by Ghai, were entered into. It was during his tenure that the Nairobi Provincial Cricket Association were expelled and questionable new provinces established. It was during Rayani's time that the government twice tried to suspend the KCA before being thwarted by the courts.

Rayani, a former colleague of his told Cricinfo, was not interested in the detail so much as mixing with the elite of the world game. "Back at home Ghai knew that this was a man who he could afford to use as a front to portray a professional clean image for Kenyan cricket, and used him to do exactly that."

While Rayani might arguably have been on the periphery, he was repeatedly warned that he was involved by association. "Wittingly or otherwise, [he was] a party to some of the worst excesses of the KCA," the source continued, adding that Rayani was told that: "Ghai was involved in a conflict of interest and that for the betterment of Kenyan cricket he should put a stop to this by asking Ghai to resign and conduct his business from outside the board."

The ICC is known to be keeping a close eye on developments in Kenya, and it is almost certain that the subject will be raised when the ICC executive committee meets in New Delhi later this month. Rayani has been a member of that committee for several years but, for the good of the game, he should step down with immediate effect until the Kenyan situation is investigated and resolved.

The buck for the mess which is Kenyan cricket has to stop somewhere, and rightly or wrongly that has to be with the person who was KCA chairman for a decade. It might well be that an innocent man is being dragged into a mess unfairly. Sadly, he will not be the first such person linked to Kenyan cricket to have suffered such a fate, and the warning signs were all too evident had he cared to look more closely.