1994 ICC Trophy
| Administrator(s) | International Cricket Council |
|---|---|
| Cricket format | Limited overs cricket |
| Tournament format(s) | Round-robin and Knockout |
| Host(s) |  Kenya |
| Champions |  United Arab Emirates (1st title) |
| Participants | 20 |
| Most runs |  Nolan Clarke (517) |
| Most wickets |  Gavin Murgatroyd (19) Fred Arua (19) |
The 1994 ICC Trophy (formally the ABN AMRO ICC Trophy) was a cricket tournament that took place in Kenya between 12 February and 6 March 1994. It was the fifth ICC Trophy tournament to be staged, and acted as the qualifying tournament for the 1996 Cricket World Cup.
Zimbabwe, the winners of the previous three tournaments, had been granted full membership of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 1992 and so were no longer eligible to participate in the ICC Trophy.
For the first time, matches were played over 50 overs a side, though white clothing and red balls were still used.
The United Arab Emirates won the tournament, defeating host nation Kenya in the final, while the Netherlands won the third place play-off. All three sides thus qualified for the World Cup for the first time.
Contents
First round
The first round took the form of a group stage. The twenty teams were split into four groups of five. The top two teams from each group went through to the second round, the third and fourth placed teams went through to the Plate competition, whilst the 5th placed teams went through to the Wooden Spoon competition.
Second stage
Wooden Spoon
The Wooden Spoon competition was a four team round robin tournament. It was won by West Africa with Gibraltar suffering the ignominy of the last place finish in the whole tournament.
Plate Competition
The eight teams in the plate competition were divided into two groups of four. It was originally intended that the winners of each group (Papua New Guinea and the USA) would play the plate final, but both those teams had booked their flights home, not expecting to qualify, so the final was played between Denmark and Namibia. Namibia won by 41 runs thanks to an innings of 106 from Gavin Murgatroyd.
Main tournament
The second stage for the main tournament also took the form of two groups of four teams each. The top two teams from each group qualified for the semi finals.
Semi finals
The first semi final saw Kenya take on Bermuda. Kenya batted first and scored 318/5 from their 50 overs, Maurice Odumbe top-scoring with an unbeaten 158. Clay Smith scored 108 in Bermuda's reply, but no one else passed fifty, and they could only score 254/9 from their 50 overs. In the second semi final, The Netherlands were dismissed for 194 by the UAE. They then took the top four UAE wickets quickly, but Mohammad Ishaq with 72, and Saleem Raza with 65 steered the UAE into the final.
Third place play off
The third place play off saw the Netherlands secure their place in the World Cup with a big win over Bermuda. Batting first, an unbeaten 121 from Nolan Clarke saw them to a total of 306/2 from their 50 overs. Bermuda were never in the hunt and were dismissed for just 203.
Final
The final was a close-fought affair that went down to the final over. After being put into bat, Kenya made 281/6 from their 50 overs, with Maurice Odumbe again top-scoring with 86 and being assisted by Steve Tikolo (54) and Kennedy Otieno (49). The UAE innings saw Riaz Poonawala (71) and Azhar Saeed (59) put on 141 for the first wicket, before Martin Suji took four wickets and Edward Odumbe two. However, the UAE reached their target of 282 with five balls and two wickets to spare.
