Although the national squad of Kenya is going through a turmoil of their own in terms of performance and adminitrative issues, the former players have been shaping the future of cricket in some of the other African Associate member countries at the moment.
For example, Steve Tikolo, Martin Suji and Joseph Angara are now the head coaches of the national men’s teams in Tanzania, Rwanda and Botswana respectively. While Martin Suji and Joseph Angara have been associated with Rwanda and Botswana teams for quite sometime now, Tikolo shifted base to Tanzania after not renewing his contract with Uganda Cricket Association. Tikolo already had the first assignment done with the men’s national squad of Tanzania during their tour of Zimbabwe in Mar 2020, where they played six T20 matches against Zimbabwe’s domestic club, Mid-West Rhinos.
All the three coaches were preparing the national squads for their Africa sub-regional qualifiers in South Africa in Apr/May 2020, which has now been postponed due to the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic globally. Tanzania, Rwanda and Botswana were part of the same group as Cameroon, Ghana, Uganda, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, St Helena and Swaziland, from which the top 2 teams were to advance to the Africa regional finals.
While Steve Tikolo and Joseph Angara have served as the head coach for the Kenya U-19 squad in the early 2010s, Martin Suji was made assistant coach of the national team after the departure of former West Indian Roger Harper after the 2007 ICC T20 World Cup until 2008. Suji has also coached the Ugandan national squad in the past, with Tikolo in the same support staff as asistant coach.
Angara has achieved success with Botswana, with whom he has been in contract since 2015, as the national squad qualified for the Africa regional finals for the 2020 T20 World Cup in 2019, after qualifying from the sub-regional event held at home in 2018, where they registered a famous win over Namibia in the tournament final.
