Nairobi: During recent World Cups, the cricket fraternity in Kenya would be on tenterhooks as they cheered their national team wholeheartedly.

But the ongoing 2015 edition of the global event that is being co-hosted Australia and New Zealand is being played without the East African nation participating for the first time since 1996, when the country qualified on merit and thereafter featured at the event on five occasions till 2011, reports Xinhua.