Odoyo’s charges go down, miss finals slot

It was end of the road for Kenya as they fell by two wickets to Qatar and are out of contention for title of the Four-Nation Quadrangular Tweny20. The hosts, who had won the 50-over series of the tournament last weekend, could not stand up to their guests.

Kenya first collapsed in the hands of Saudi Arabia by 39 runs in their first match of the T20 series before staging a comeback to beat Uganda by seven wickets. They, however, failed when it mattered most  and allowed the Qataris to snatch the finals slot with two balls to spare.

Qatar won the toss and opted to field and then restricted Kenya to 158 for seven in 20 overs. Captain Rakep Patel was the lead scorer for Kenya with 54 runs off 40 deliveries. He hit five fours and two sixes.

Rushab Patel was second-best for the homeboys with 28 off 19 while Irfran Karim was third with 19 off 15. Rakep and experienced all-rounder Collins Obuya’s partnership produced 41 runs. Partnership between Rakep and Rushab had 27 runs while Rakep and Karim’s partnership produced 26.

In response, Saudi Arabia’s Faisal Javid Khan hit 35 runs off 16 and Imran Ashraf scored 33 off 20. Iman-ul-Haq scored a run-a-ball 31 as Iqbal Hussain made 24 off 11. Khan and Hussain recorded the highest striking rates of the day at 218.75 and 218.18 respectively.

National team coach Thomas Odoyo told FeverPitch that despite the loss, his boys will carry home valuable lessons that will help them improve. “It’s unfortunate that we lost this match and there is no other match through which we can make amends. Even then, we are not leaving empty-handed because we have learnt lessons that will come in handy in our future assignments,” Odoyo said.

He added that the championship was very competitive but they could have won had they set a huge target. “We fell short of the runs we had targeted and it proved costly because in this shorter version of the game one over can make a huge difference. We needed 170 runs or more and we came short by 12. Had we achieved that, we would be in the final.

“We now shift focus to the World Cricket League Championship against Hong Kong in November,” he said.