I HAVE NO REGRETS: Half a decade since his ban ended, Odumbe continues to live with the stigma of corruption

Maurice Odumbe

After missing out on the 2015 World Cup and losing ODI status to boot, Kenyan cricket is in a desolate state. Their appearance in the 2003 World Cup semi-final embodies a better age, 11 years ago and a world away.

One member of that side is not feted today. Maurice Odumbe was Kenya’s outstanding player in that tournament, averaging 42 with the bat and taking nine wickets. No one remembers that now. In August 2004, he was banned from cricket for five years for associating with a “known bookmaker”.

Perhaps surprisingly, Odumbe is not reluctant to talk. He is courteous, charming and generous with his time. And he continues to deny any wrongdoing. All he accepts was that he had a friendship with the alleged bookie, the Indian businessman Jagdish Sodha.

“He was always saying that he was in the movie industry, and I could see one or two posters with his name on it,” Odumbe says. “I don’t think his business card was printed ‘bookmaker’.”

 

LESS CONVINCING

The explanation is less convincing, given that Odumbe admits to having known him for eight years. “We were not bosom buddies, it was just once in a while ‘Hi, how are you?’ You know, that sort of thing.

“I never stole anybody’s money, yet I was given five years,” Odumbe says. “I was banned for inappropriate contact, it was never match-fixing, but they don’t seem to want to get it right. I think ‘match-fixing’ sounds much sweeter.

“The only way probably I would have known is if he had approached me, and said, ‘Look, can you do A for me?’ In fact, there was a time even when the investigators came talking to me, they asked me the same question: ‘How could you not know that he was a bookmaker?’ I said, ‘Ah, well, it’s not written on his forehead.’”

 

ENEMIES EVERYWHERE

Odumbe finds enemies everywhere in the case against him. He feels wronged by the ICC, who appointed the Zimbabwean judge Ahmed Ibrahim to chair the case against him. “When you look at other cases, it was always a local judge who would preside over the matter, and then send their findings to ICC,” Odumbe says. “But in my case, the ICC investigated me, they were the ones who passed a sentence on me.”

He also feels wronged by the Kenyan board. “If you look around, all over the world, the local boards have always stood by their players. But in my case, my local board, they left my head on the chopping board. Sometimes people even wonder, is it a question of colour, or what is it?”

And than there are his exes, including former wife Katherine Maloney, who testified against Odumbe. “If you look at the witnesses that they brought in my case, 99  per cent of them were former girlfriends, so obviously they had a bone to pick with me.”

Such a list of grievances sounds like the paranoia of a man refusing to admit guilt. But when Odumbe asserts that his punishment was harsh compared to those received by some more prominent names, he perhaps has a point. “If you look at Shane Warne and Mark Waugh, they accepted giving information to a bookmaker, and what happened to them? It was just a slap on the wrist.”

I GAVE MY BEST

While Tom Tikolo, who was accused of embezzling $10,000 in 2009, has been allowed to return to the fold, Odumbe remains ostracised from the running of the game in Kenya. “Where is the integrity here? I never stole anybody’s money, yet I was given five years. I am persona non grata, right?” He asserts that the officials in Cricket Kenya “feel threatened by somebody like me, with my presence, asking if someone like me is not being used, then who are they using?”

He shows no sign of remorse. “The only wrong I did is befriending the gentleman. When it comes to the integrity of the sport, I think I gave it my best, I gave it my all, and the good thing is, I sleep easy knowing that whatever happened to me, I was wrongly accused, I was wrongly sentenced, without any mercy, without any chance of an appeal.”

No other Kenyan was ever found guilty of corruption, but Odumbe does not believe that this is proof of a clean game. “I’ve heard rumours and I know for a fact that the investigators were down here to talk to a few players.”

— ESPNCricinfo