NEW DELHI: Whipping boys of the tournament, Canada and Kenya will have only pride to play for when they meet in a low-key World Cup clash today.The two non-Test playing teams are languishing at the bottom of Group A without a point after having lost three games each.Their performances have added weight to the International Cricket Council's decision to chop the number of teams to 10 from 14 for the next edition.Ireland are the only associate nation who have managed to throw the form book out of the window and script an upset win, against England in Bangalore this week.Canada had a golden chance to imitate Ireland against Pakistan when they bowled their rivals out for a below-par 184 following some inspired bowling led by medium-pacer Harvir Baidwan.But the opportunity was squandered with Ashish Bagai's men folding up for 138 in 42.5 overs despite being comfortably placed at 104-3 at one point.Bagai refused to play the minnow card when explaining his team's 46-run defeat and accepted that his side had no answers to the leg-spin of Shahid Afridi, who picked a match-winning 5-23."Our batting let us down, we just played poorly during our chase," said Bagai. "It was a good toss to lose as the wicket had become better as the game progressed but Afridi took it away from us."Ireland played pretty bravely against England and that's why losing against Pakistan was more disappointing."Kenya were whacked by 10 wickets by New Zealand before being hammered by Pakistan and Sri Lanka in one-sided encounters."Our big concern is we are not batting out our 50 overs," Kenyan captain Jimmy Kamande said. "That's the one area we want to work on very, very hard because you can't win matches without batting your full quota of overs."Kamande also dismissed reports of a rift in the team ahead of the day-night clash against Canada."The whole squad I know is giving its 110 per cent. You don't need to tell anyone you need to perform against Canada."After all these tough matches against Test sides that's what we need to show, that we have learnt from them."Canada have also suffered big defeats and we know they will also come hard at us and that's what we should be prepared for." (AFP)
