Despite rumblings from various corners, it has been confirmed that the WCL is now set to go ahead in Nairobi as planned. After mike Proctor’s inspection in June, the clubs selected to host matches were Nairobi Gymkhana, Nairobi Jaffery and Ruaraka. Two other former ODI venues, Aga Khan and Nairobi Club were ruled out at that time, the former being too narrow to conform to current ICC specifications, the latter having “an outfield like a national park”.

Gymkhana has recently stood out as Kenya’s best ground, but the other two needed some extensive work done to bring them up to the required standard to host ODIs. Ruaraka needed the changing rooms to be considerably improved, and Jaffery had no umpire facilities and an outfield that required significant work. Both grounds had poor scoreboards with no Duckworth/Lewis display.

During the Intercontinental Cup match against Bermuda, both venues were inspected again by Chris Broad with differing results. He felt that Ruaraka had done enough to merit accreditation provided a minor alteration was made to one of the two changing rooms and evidence of the scoreboard (it was being painted when he inspected) to show the required display was given. Jaffery was another matter and showed little improvement since the original visit. A deadline of 30th November was imposed for sanding of the outfield to be carried out and umpires changing rooms put in place. This has now been completed.

Barring some minor paint jobs and interference from the weather which has caused considerable disruption over the last month, the works are now completed. Jaffery will be inspected again in late December or early January, and Cricket Kenya are confident that it will meet with approval. Both scoreboards have been considerably improved and the weather should dry out enough over December for the outfields to really look good by the time the WCL comes around.

To be fair to Cricket Kenya, it was only on 14th November (2 days before the Broad inspection) that they actually received any financial assistance from the ICC to upgrade facilities, and that only after extensive lobbying. Compare this with the West Indies who received a loan of US$45 million to upgrade its infrastructure in preparation for the World Cup. Still, better late than never, and Kenya can now look forward to hosting what promises to be a hard fought event. With the top two teams in January earning places in the Twenty-20 World Cup and the US$250 000 that comes with it, there will certainly be all to play for and we can expect some quality cricket from the top Associates