Kenya

Full article: East Africa cricket team Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda combined to form the East Africa cricket team, which became an associate member of the ICC in 1966. They continued playing amongst themselves, and were joined by Zambia in a quadrangular tournament played annually between 1966 and 1980. India toured East Africa in 1967 and played a three-day match against Kenya on 5 August, which was drawn. Various tours of, and by, East Africa continued, including a tour of England in 1972 and a first-class match between East Africa and the MCC at Nairobi Gymkhana Club in 1974 before East Africa took part in the first Cricket World Cup. The 1975 Cricket World Cup took place in England, and East Africa was one of two non-test teams invited to the tournament, the other being Sri Lanka. Kenya provided half of the fourteen-man squad for the tournament. After warm-up matches against Somerset, Wales, Glamorgan and various club teams, they played in the same first round group as England, India and New Zealand, losing to all three. The World Cup was followed by a first-class match against Sri Lanka at the County Ground, Taunton. East Africa then took part in the 1979 ICC Trophy, the first ICC Trophy tournament, but did not progress beyond the first round, thus missing out on qualification for the 1979 World Cup.

Long considered the strongest part of the East African cricket team, Kenya broke away in 1981 and joined the ICC in their own right as an associate member, shortly after a tour of Zimbabwe in 1980/81. They played two three-day matches against Zimbabwe on that tour, losing both. Kenya played in the ICC Trophy in their own right in 1982, 1986, and 1990, also playing their first first-class match against Pakistan B in September 1986.

The 1994 ICC Trophy was hosted in Nairobi and Kenya finished as runners-up to the UAE, thus qualifying for the 1996 World Cup. Kenya then played at home against India A in August 1995, and went on a tour to South Africa in September/October that year, before playing in the World Cup, which was to bring Kenyan cricket to a much wider audience, and catapult them into the spotlight. Kenya was in the same group as Australia, India, Sri Lanka, the West Indies and Zimbabwe. They played their very first ODI match against India.

In what at the time was described as the most startling upsets in the history of the World Cup, Kenya bowled out the West Indies for just 93 and won by 73 runs.