It is feared that things could get worse today when Kenya take on giants Pakistan although the squad is struggling to sweep the chaos in camp under the rug.
Kenya’s coach Eldine Baptiste is at war. Not against other coaches, but with his own players.
Or rather the senior players, who include Thomas Odoyo who, impeccable sources in the camp say, the coach wanted to expel even before the team played New Zealand.
Also in the coach’s bad books are other players and the team manager - one little known Julian Ince from Naivasha - who maintained Odoyo had to stay in Asia despite calls by Baptiste to have him ejected.
Even though Cricket Kenya officials have never admitted it, Baptiste does not command respect from the senior players led by Tikolo, Odoyo, Peter Ong’ondo and former skipper’ Maurice Ouma, and he does not hide his disdain for them too.
Denied there is a rift
CK officials, led by the Mombasa-based chairman, Samir Inamdar, have always denied there is a rift.
“I talked to the coach yesterday and he did not mention any sort of a rift in the team,” Inamdar said in a telephone interview on the day of the 10-wicket debacle against New Zealand.
“As far as I know, the coach is a hard nut to crack. The CEO (Tom Sears) is also with the team and there is absolutely no in-fighting.”
This is the kind of a response that came from the camp in India too, with the media manager, Arjun Vidyarthi, denying any intra-fighting and saying that the coach did not threaten to expel Odoyo.
But our sources say things are not that rosy.
“Of course the officials and the media manager will not admit that there is a problem, but there is one,” our source said, and added that the players are not out to throw away matches, but were just outplayed by the “Black Caps” even though anyone watching the game could see that Odoyo and Tikolo did not give it their all.
The Kenyan problem runs deeper than just the lack of respect between the coach and the senior players.
The heart of the matter is money. The players had signed contracts with CK when there was no sponsor, and when Karuturi Global came into the scene just before the World Cup, they thought their contracts would be renegotiated. But that did not happen.
Just like the local and probably the international media is in the dark over the amount of sponsorship, and so are the players.
Meanwhile, veteran batsman Steve Tikolo vowed yesterday that Kenya would lift themselves for their match against Pakistan on Wednesday after their mauling by New Zealand.
Miserable batting display
Tikolo said professionals should know how to lift themselves after a big disappointment.
“As a top professional, for me if you are down it’s the way you pick yourself up, and obviously we can pick ourselves up for the game on Wednesday,” said Tikolo, dismissed for just two during a miserable batting display.
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