Had anyone bothered to ask former England A captain Mark Nicholas whether they should play World Cup matches in Zimbabwe and Kenya, he may have leaned towards a vote of nay.

Mike Atherton, in his superb autobiography Opening Up (Hodder and Stoughton), tells of how Nicholas led an England A team, which included Atherton, on a tour of those two countries back in 1990.

The team, according to Kenya-born England bowler Derek Pringle, "cut a swathe of goodwill" through the two nations and even attracted the attention of the patron devil of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union for a pressing of the flesh.

Atherton writes that he was standing next to Nicholas when he was introduced to Robert Mugabe and heard his captain ask: "Will the election be close, Sir?"

"Not really," said Mugabe. "It's just a matter of public buffoonery we've set up in this country."

England then travelled from burgeoning dictatorship in Zimbabwe to burgeoning diarrhoea in Kenya, where most of the team picked up salmonella poisoning in a Chinese restaurant.

In all, it was a decent tour for the English. They picked up runs as well as the runs, but they also picked up an indication of where Zimbabwe was heading, and could have begun questioning the morality of playing in the shadow of the man with the thin black Hitler moustache 13 years before the 2003 World Cup.

What the public buffoonery has disguised is that Kenya have played very, very well to get as far as they have. They have beaten three Test-playing nations - Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe - and brought out the best in India by going hell for leather. They have thrown everything at their opposition. Maurice Odumbe could have hit a kitchen sink for six the way he played in Bloemfontein on Wednesday.

Wishing them ill would be akin to slapping one of the purple-shirted volunteers around the chops for smiling too much and being too damn helpful.

Atherton's autobiography should be requisite reading for all cricketers, from those who have their heads in the clouds to those with their heads up their bums. He shows the sport for the absurd and decent animal it is.

There was the time when AC Smith, the chief executive of England's cricket board, got on his hands and knees before a selection meeting and looked under the table and chairs in the room. What was he looking for? "Bugs, old boy. I'm looking for listening devices. You can't be too careful, you know."

Or how never to say the word "wanker" after being hit on the arm by Courtney Walsh, even if it is to yourself. It is the quickest way to be put on your bum.

Or on receiving his first England cap in a plastic bag from David Gower in the dressing room.

His was a career less ordinary and less grumpy than it was ever made out to be.

This World Cup has been less ordinary, too. We have Kenya to thank for that.