Maurice Ouma is the 2009 Kenyacricket.com Player of the Year

This year Kenya cricket.com reintroduced the Player of the Year award bringing in a much larger panel of judges to select Kenya's most consistent high achiever over the last 12 months.

There are 2 panels (Players & Journalists) plus a Fan poll. Each panel has 5 judges on it.

How the panels work is that after each International match, each panelist awards 3 points to the player they think performed the best, 2 points to the next best performer and 1 point for the 3rd best performer for Kenya in that match.

Fan points are allocated the same way, but based on an online poll.

After each game, the total points for each panel are tallied and the highest points total for that panel gets awarded 3 points, the second highest 2 points and the 3rd highest 1 point. These are referred to as Aggeragate Points.

The total aggeragate points from each panel plus the fan poll (3,2,1 as well) are then totalled and again the highest scoring player is awarded 3 points, the next highest 2 and the third highest 1 point for the match - known as Match Points.

By using this system, at the end of each game 3 players come out with Match Points that then go towards the end of year tally. The player with the most points at the end of the year in the Player of the Year.

Using the several levels of tallying helps remove personal bias and rewards the best and most deserving players for that match.

Please note that not all panelists were available for all matches, but we have strived to adhere to this system as much as possible.

This year, possibly because of the extra panelists, it has been the closest ever decision. In the end only 1.5 points split the top 4 performers with new captain, Maurice Ouma (pictured v Ireland in the Intercontinental Cup), narrowly edging out Steve Tikolo and Jimmy Kamande to take the award. Past winners include Steve Tikolo (2006) and Thomas Odoyo (2007). There was no award in 2008.

Congratulations to Maurice on being chosen as Kenya Cricket.com Player of the Year 2009 and to all the players who made this such a close competition.

As Maurice sits on the players panel, I thought it would be a good idea to go back and see what the result would have been if his points were not included. Had this happened, he would actually have won by a clearer margin of 2 points rather than 0.5!

My thanks to all the panelists for 2009 - I hope we can count on your input again in 2010 and to thanks also to all the fans who voted online. Hopefully we will have a much more streamlined process for this next year.

Final Points:

Player	TOTAL
Maurice Ouma	18.5
Steve Tikolo	18
Jimmy Kamande	18
Nehemiah Odhiambo	17
Alex Obanda	16
Hiren Varaiya	15.5
Collins Obuya	14
Thomas Odoyo	13
Kennedy Otieno	10
David Obuya	6.5
Rakep Patel	6
Lameck Onyango	6
Seren waters	5
Peter Ongondo	4.5
Elijah Otieno	3
Lucas Oluoch	3
Shem Obado	2
Rajesh Bhudia	2
Alfred Luseno	1

All Internationals in 2009 were included with the exception of the warm up series v Uganda at the beginning of the year and the 2 20-20s v Uganda in December.

Cricket Kenya organise Media Challenge

Well after so much sniping from the media it seems that Cricket Kenya have finally decided that it is time to make a more concerted effort to get them to understand the game. Most of reporters on cricket in Kenya do not and have not played themselves so Cricket Kenya has organised an Inter Media Challenge for November 7th 2009.

They have invited teams from the following media groups to participate:

i) Standard Media Group,
ii) The Nation Media Group,
iii) The Kenya Broadcasting Corporation,
iv) The People Daily,
v) Africa One Media (Kiss FM, Jambo Fm, Classic FM, East FM etc)

Format will be eight a-side 10-overs per innings matches and will give the players a good insight into what playing the game really entails. Not only will they get the opportunity to play on the day but Cricket Kenya will also organise training sessions for each of the teams so that they can gear up and actually get the most out of the experience.

Given that they will be given sufficient training that they will not embarrass themselves and that there is plenty of time to prepare and the size of the organisations invited, THERE SHOULD BE NO REASON WHY ALL THE ABOVE CANNOT RAISE A TEAM. Those that don't are plain and simply cowards.

Now the time for loose talk is over. Members of the press who have been so critical of the game and its players will have to put their money where their mouth is. Or their bats where their pens are perhaps would be a better turn of phrase. Who will actually stand up and prove that they have the mettle to learn the game. I hope and expect that most of those who do take part in this will thouroughly enjoy it and if they do, I offer a further challenge:

Submit a joint Media Team to future NPCA competitions. There would be no better way that to further grow an understanding of the more complex parts of the game such as building an innings, scoring centuries, bowling as a partnership etc, all things which can only be guessed at in 10-overs a-side matches.

Failing that, given that all correspondents for Kenya Cricket.com play the game, next time I am in Kenya, we will challenge the winners or a joint team to a match.

Game on and all credit to whoever in Cricket Kenya came up with this idea!