Former India pacer Dodda Ganesh has been appointed as Kenya men's cricket team's head coach. The announcement came on August 13 as Ganesh was unveiled as head coach in a media event.
Ganesh's first assignment as Kenya's head coach will be in the ICC Division 2 Challenge League in September followed by T20 World Cup Africa Qualifiers in October this year.
Ganesh took to X and said, "Privileged to be named the head coach of the Kenya cricket team."
Ganesh has a tough road ahead as he coaches the Kenyan team which once qualified for ODI World Cup 2003 semifinal but has not been able to keep up with modern-day cricket. They have not been able to qualify for T20 World Cup since the inaugural edition in 2007.
In the ICC ODI rankings, they are nowhere to be seen in top 20 teams. In the ICC T20I rankings, they are placed 33, even behind the likes of Malaysia, Spain, Italy and others.
Ganesh’s international career
The former Karnataka pacer has played four Tests and one ODI for India. He has five wickets in Tests and one wicket in ODIs. With the bat, he has scored 25 runs in red-ball cricket and four runs in ODIs.
He made his Test debut against South Africa in Cape Town in 1997. Next month, he made his ODI debut against Zimbabwe but wasn't given another chance. He made his last Test appearance in April 1997 against West Indies.
Ganesh’s numbers in domestic cricket
The 51-year-old has impressive numbers in domestic cricket. From 104 First-Class games, he has 365 wickets including 20 fifers and six 10-wicket hauls. He made handy contributions with the bat down the order. He has 2,023 runs from 133 innings at an average of 18.39 including one century and seven fifties.
In List A cricket (One-Day), he has 128 wickets including one four-fer. He scored 525 runs from 59 innings as well. His last appearance in professional cricket was in a Ranji Trophy 2005-06 match against Bengal.
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