Move Over Australia (Kenya’s the New King)
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It’s official: Kenya are world’s most successful ODI side. And no, this is not a joke. Their success rate so far in 2007 has been 77%, better than Australia’s 73 something.
They played 17 ODIs in all and won 13. Only two matches were against Test-playing nations–England and New Zealand–which they lost, of course.
Ohkay, busted. Some kidding there, but I thought this discovery by folks at Caught Behind needed some word-of-blog spreading.
Anyway, just in case you don’t already know this: Kenya also beat Bermuda by eight wickets in the Intercontinental Cup recently.Thomas Odoyo hammered 111 off 113 balls to help Kenya clinch the match by six wickets after being reduced to 49/5 in their first ODI against Canada.
I won’t fake knowledge about their history (I am no Stuart), but I and most of the world remember them for two upsets in cricketing history, basically.
* They reached world cup semis in 2003. On their way to the semi-final spot they beat Zimbabwe, a team supposedly better than them. New Zealand refused to play on their land for security reasons, so Kenya pocketed bonus points that helped them further. Some luck, some bravo, and they made it pretty neatly.
This reminds me of some interesting dialogue that took place between Ganguly and Ponting.
Ganguly: We’d prefer to meet Sri Lanka in the final.
Ponting rebuttal: We’d prefer to meet Kenya in the final.
India breezed past Kenya in the semis. No surprise there. And Oz made it to final. No surprise again.
*70-run win over India at Port Elizabeth on 17 October 2001 during the tri-nation series in South Africa. John Wright’s was India coach.
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Due to several personal reasons, I am extremely interested in the advent of cricket. I would like to, but I don’t usually follow the minnow cricket very closely, but this is funny that this post is coming at a time when I am actually looking into what’s going on for the associates.
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We are desperate to topple Australia. And it can’t hurt if it takes some stat hacks to do that.
Btw, the headline is ominous of what’s to come in the near future (except the Kenya part). Didn’t I ever mention I have intuitive powers? Anyhoo, take the poll.
I had put in Kenya and Bangladesh just for fun in the current poll, and Kenya even has a vote.
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BRING THEM ON: India meets Australia. A month and a half to go.
Tags: Australia, India, Intercontinental-cup, Kenya, ricky-ponting, sourav-ganguly, thomas-oddoyoRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Cricket, Cricket Jokes, ODI Cricket
6 opinions for Move Over Australia (Kenya’s the New King)
Scorpicity
Nov 27, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Ponting’s rebuttal was funny… did that war of words really take place Dinnie? Shucks what was I doing in that world cup.
Ottayan
Nov 28, 2007 at 12:57 am
Dinnie,
Maybe we should give Kenya Test playing status.
straight point
Nov 28, 2007 at 9:51 am
that will be taking it too far i guess…OT
Dinnie
Nov 28, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Yeh, that exchange took place, Scorp. It was all over the newspapers.
As for the Test status, Ottayan and SP, there was news that Kenya and a couple others would get it after the 2011 WC.
Uncle J Rod
Nov 30, 2007 at 1:46 am
I voted for them in your poll.
They have a great flag.
Dinnie
Dec 1, 2007 at 4:26 pm
“We would like Kenya to topple us,” says Uncle J. Rod.
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