Audley Boyd, Assistant Sport Editor

Tikolo

FLORENCE HALL, Trelawny:

STEVE TIKOLO may be approaching the twilight of his career, but like theeternal star, the Kenya national cricket captain is keen to show he hasn't lost his shine.

After watching the erosion of some serious groundwork for Kenyan cricket dissipate over a two-year gap just recently, the 35-year-old all-rounder is proudly leading the African team's resurgence on the stage where only four years ago they were flashing bright signals around the globe with a semi-final finish in the ICC Cricket World Cup.

Then, they were co-hosts to the main South Africa show, but now they are visitors to the Caribbean party.

Similar to the last tournament, where they pulled off a massive surprise, the Kenyans are not expected to advance very far. But don't tell that to the man who also played soccer as a central defender then goalkeeper, a man who takes pride in his leadership position and has full belief in his team's ability.

"The other players look up to me in a big way. They know I've been there, a veteran," says Tikolo. "This is my fourth World Cup and also the performances speak for themselves. In Kenya, there is a lot of respect in that area. I just wake up every day and looking at the guys, the enthusiasm in the team. I feel proud to be leading this team.

"Our aim is to play each game as it comes, try to be as competitive as we can. We have been doing the little things right. We just had a tournament in Nairobi where we won the World Cricket League (WCL) which involved the associate countries so we have momentum coming into this tournament. But again, I think it's not going to be easy so we mustn't lie to ourselves. Most of the teams will be coming to beat Kenya because they know what we did in the 2003 World Cup."

In last-minute preparations for this championship, they played two warm-up games at the Multi-purpose stadium in Trelawny, losing by 21 runs against the West Indies then beating the Netherlands by nine. Next Wednesday, they begin their cup campaign with a Group C clash against Canada in St. Lucia, and will also play against England and New Zealand. The top two advance to the Super Eight segment and Tikolo has already mapped out the qualifying formula.

anything and everything

"We'll be looking to try and win against Canada and then get a win against one of the two Test-playing countries," he said. "In this game anything and everything is possible. The guys are positive.

"In one-day cricket it might take one ball for the game to turn around so we are always positive when we go out and we know we can achieve the feat we did in 2003."

That was their third World Cup Finals appearance. They started back in 1996, with Tikolo a part of the team.

"I've gained a lot of experience; I've played 91 one-dayers," he admits.

They scored a pretty massive upset in that tournament against the West Indies, which, like reggae music, serves as an inspiration to Tikolo.

"I'm a great fan of reggae music, artistes like the late Joseph Hill (Culture) is my best artiste. I listen to a lot of his music and reggae in general."

On Windies cricket, he said: "We do have admiration for the West Indies team since time immemorial. Growing up they were always our idols, the great West Indies team with Michael Holding, Viv Richards, even our coach Roger (Harper), we've always looked up to them," the Kenya skipper said.

He added: "Growing up, I used to watch Richards, he's always been my role model. Learning from the way he played, he's always been a great inspiration to me and obviously some of the current players like Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, but all in all, my family has always been behind me and they've supported me all the way."

audley.boyd@gleanerjm.com