ICC Tri-Series (Mombasa) Review

Today saw the conclusion of the ICC Tri-Series in Mombasa between three of the teams that we will see in action in the World Cup later in the year. Kenya, to no-one's great surprise topped the table, as they should for a team with a higher World Cup seeding than Test-playing rivals Bangladesh, although not without losing to fellow Group C minnows Canada in the final game.

It had all started off so well for Kenya, with a hammering of Scotland in the first game with returnee Ravi Shah one of four Kenyan players to pass fifty before the bowlers wrapped up victory by 190 runs. We feared the worst for Scotland, and there was talk of them conceding 500 when they play Australia in March. They couldn't have answered us critics better; a wondeful unbeaten century from Ryan Watson took them to a nail-biting two-wicket win over Canada.

That performance won Watson the Cricket World ® Player Of The Week Award and we have no reason to contend with head coach Peter Drinnen's view that he is the best batsmen in Scotland at the moment. Then came a moment of history when a virus swept through the Canadian and Scottish camp before their next games against Kenya.

Canada couldn't raise a team causing a first ever forfeiture of a match for this reason. Scotland played their match, but missing a number of regular players and with those who played in a terrible state, they performed valiantly and only lost by 6 runs. The highlight of that game was a well compiled century from Ravi Shah for Kenya. His return has beefed up the Kenyan middle-order and with most of their batsmen scoring runs at some point in the tournament, they look a confident outfit heading to the World Cricket League.

Scotland then repeated their victory over Canada, first bowling well to restrict the North Americans to 208, then batting poorly to put themselves at risk of an unlikely defeat before John Blain came to the rescue with an unbeaten 30 to ensure a 2 wicket win.

Then came the final twist - there was to be no victory parade for Kenya as Canada spoiled the party with a superb bowling effort to win by 69 runs and in so doing salvage some pride. Their success was again based around the batting of John Davison, but Kevin Sandher was the key man with the ball, taking 3 wickets to derail the run chase and engender a collapse which saw the previously solid Kenyan middle order collectively go missing.

For Canada, it marked a comeback equal to that of Scotland and will be a huge confidence boost ahead of the World Cricket League and the World Cup, where they will face Kenya again early on. Both Canada and Scotland can rightly argue that the virus stopped them playing their best cricket, and Kenya made the most of home advantage, so it is difficult to really gauge where these teams are in the run up to the World Cup. It seems that all three are capable of beating the others on their day, and therefore that no associate nation is consistently better than all the rest. Perhaps the World Cricket League will show us otherwise.

Final table:

           P  W  T NR  L BP Pts    NRR
Kenya      4  3  0  0  1  1  13    0.85
Scotland   4  2  0  0  2  0   8   -0.91
Canada     4  1  0  0  3  1   5    0.36