Kenya's shock victory was thoroughly deserved

The second one-day international against Kenya was played under ideal conditions: the wicket was true, the weather was fair, and the ambience was perfect. But I could not help thinking that the Kenyans would have to play out of their collective skin to stretch the Indians and that this game, too, would end up like the lopsided affair of Bloemfontein. That match, as I have mentioned in my previous column, was a disappointing one, at least in terms of competition.

Perhaps I should have been fairer in my assessment, especially after watching the Kenyans play against South Africa and score 229 runs. Although they lost that game, there was a spirit of application and confidence that was nowhere in sight at Bloemfontein. If that match was any measure of a change in approach, my evaluation should have been a tad more favourable towards Kenya.

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The Kenyans, in my opinion, had a good measure of the overall strength of the Indian side, and they must have fancied their chances if they could put up a decent total. After winning the toss, the stand-in captain, Steve Tikolo, did mention that, with a score of around 250, Kenya could fight it out. Anybody recalling the Kenyan total of 90 in their previous encounter with India might have felt that Tikolo was perhaps setting his sights a little too high.

Even though the Indian think-tank brought in Harvinder Singh, Venkatesh Prasad and Reetinder Singh Sodhi as part of a rotation policy, the move did not yield the expected results. Sodhi was much too slow to pose any problems to Kenyan batsmen playing with a positive approach. Harvinder lacked line and length, and Prasad, too, was consistently wayward with his direction.

Only Harbhajan Singh and Kumble, I thought, bowled with any sense of accuracy, cutting down the flow of runs that had started with the very first over. But their efforts were not good enough to stop the Kenyans from posting a defendable total of 246.

The Kenyan batting may not have the glamour of the much-vaunted Indian line-up but, on the day, it produced workmanlike and polished efforts. Ravindu Shah and Kennedy Otieno provided a very stable start, something that was missing in their previous matches. Thomas Odoyo, an all-rounder of considerable talent, produced his second fifty of the series, as did Shah. The three half-centuries, although not converted into more substantial innings, formed the core of the final total. It is interesting to note that when Kenya defeated India once before, in Gwalior, three Kenyan batsmen scored fifties in that game as well.

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The one element that was present in the Kenyan bowling, and notably absent in the Indian, was discipline. Inspired by the batting performance and, for a change, having a good shot at victory, the bowlers put their heart and soul into their task. Joseph Angara, Man of the Match, was the star of his side's pace battery. Sticking to line and length and concentrating on moving the ball both ways off the seam, Angara forced the Indians to go for big shots. Sometimes they came off, as in the case of Ganguly's two sixes; more often Angara succeeded, picking up the bumper wicket of Tendulkar, as well as two others.

The Kenyans bowled and fielded so well that I was wondering where this attitude, this determination and will to win, had suddenly sprouted from; they were simply brilliant. The Indian batting, without sterling performances from Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, looks considerably deficient. We may take comfort from the assertion that we were not fielding our best-possible side, but the fact remains that we played all our batting stalwarts, and it was the batting, ultimately, that let us down in chasing what was an achievable target.