Kenyans looking to upset Indians

DURBAN: Kenyan skipper Steve Tikolo says his lineup learned enough from their six-wicket defeat by India at Newlands in the Super Six round to be able to pull an upset in their Cricket World Cup semi-final at Kingsmead.

The two meet today for the right to meet world champions Australia in Sunday’s final at the Wanderers, Johannesburg. “I thought we batted well against them in Cape Town,” said Tikolo. “Especially Kennedy Otieno up front.” Otieno top-scored for Kenya in that match with 79, the highest score by any Kenyan player in the tournament. “And then our seamers did well to have them 24 for three when their innings started,” he added.

If the Kenyans have shown a quality which has served them well in the World Cup, it has been the ability to learn from defeats, and put those lessons to good use in subsequent matches. “We might have lost by five wickets to Australia at the weekend,” said Tikolo, “but we did well to recover from Brett Lee’s hat-trick in the fourth over of our innings, and build a partnership which took us to 174.” He didn’t point out that it was his 51 which was the foundation of that partnership, but expressed satisfaction with his inning, which helped him overcome a scoring slump. “I have not felt as if I have been out of form at all,” he said. “I have been hitting the ball well in the nets, so I think it has just been poor shot selection which has been getting me out. That 50 has given me confidence.”

In the match against Australia, although the Australian openers got off to a flying start — reaching 50 in the sixth over before losing a wicket — Tikolo said he had been pleased with the way the bowlers pulled it back to have the world champions looking shaky at 117 for five. “It would have been easy to just let things slip,” said Tikolo. Going into the India match, Tikolo was at pains to say the approach would be no different than it had been throughout the tournament. “We are looking at it as we look at any other game of cricket,” he said. “It’s a contest between bat and ball, and we aim to keep it that way.” Kenya already had nine matches here and got the benefit of a forfeit against New Zealand, who refused to travel to Nairobi on Feb 21 due to safety concerns. During the four years leading into the World Cup, the Kenyans had played on 18 limited-overs internationals. The regular competition here is obviously helping.