Kenya captain Steve Tikolo said it was vital the Africans played more major international matches if they were to progress as a cricket nation after they went out of the World Cup with a seven-wicket defeat against England.
Whoever won Saturday's clash at the Beausejour Cricket Ground were assured of joining New Zealand in the Super Eight stage of the tournament.
But although the experienced Tikolo scored 76, after winning the toss and batting, no other Kenyan made more than 17 as they were bowled out for 177 in a match reduced by rain to 43 overs per side.
"We need more games. I've been saying this since time immemorial," a frustrated Tikolo told reporters. "You can't come here without playing at this level consistently."
"If you look at our calendar now we have the Twenty20 World Cup [in South Africa] in September. But between now and September there's nothing for us. You can't compete like that," he said.
Tikolo said the Test nations had to make room in their own schedules, drawn up in response to the International Cricket Council's (ICC) 10-year plan if the likes of Kenya were to improve their standards.
"I think our board has been talking to the ICC but the excuse we always get is that the Test countries are busy with their 10-year calendar. But if you want the other countries to come up you need to give them more games," he said.
Tikolo, asked if he would play in a fifth World Cup in 2011 when the tournament will be staged in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, said: "That's a tough one. We'll see how my body goes. But I still want to play for Kenya for the next few years and see this team grow into a good unit."
And he insisted he took little personal satisfaction from his innings against England, his 20th fifty in 94 matches at this level.
"I would have been happy if the team had done well. I'm looking at the team goal and that's more important than personal landmarks," he said.
Tikolo -- whose team beat Canada by seven wickets and lost to New Zealand by 148 runs -- said: "I thought the guys played well given we had a relatively young team but looking at game we didn't get the partnerships going and that was the key. 177 on this wicket wasn't enough."
Many observers were surprised by the 35-year-old's decision to bat first on a ground where rain may well have freshened up the pitch.
"I thought the wicket looked fairly good for batting. The decision to bat was valid, we just lost wickets at regular intervals," Tikolo explained.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier