Rising Star beat favourites Nakumatt Jumbos by seven wickets to win the inaugural Cricket Wars festival at the Nairobi Gymkhana on Sunday.

Batting first, Jumbo made 116/4, a target that Rising Star reached for the loss of three wickets.Kanbis all rounder Rajesh Bhudia was the top scorer for Nakumatt with unbeaten 52. The right handed batsman was aided by Jasbir Singh and Kevin Patel who made 27 and 11 respectively as they lost only four wickets on the way.

Former New Zealand all rounder Chris Cains who turned up for Rising Stars' scored 36 to steer his team to victory.Cairns and former Australia batsman Damien Martyn had to dig in with all their experience to enable Stars to run away with the victory after tough response from Jumbos, the only local team made up entirely of non-league amateurs.

The event, which started on Friday and was given wild berth by national team players and various club players, saw the number of runs improved rapidly from the 60s on Day One to three figures on Sunday. The clear star of the opening two days, Ian Harvey also from Australia saw his battling Tee Vee Tigers bundled out in the semi-finals by eventual winners Rising Stars.

After the matches, Harvey said he was thoroughly pleased by his sojourn in Kenya. "Wonderful people and tremendous youthful players. But these guys conned us. We thought we were coming just to just coming to fool around, but, No! there was plenty of hard-thinking cricket to be done here.

"There were young players with a lot skill, determination and fight. I think there is thriving cricket potential here."