Zimbabwe Times
January 21, 2010
By Warren Dennis
The cloudless skies of Harare, with the sun shining brightly in the sky, especially at this time of the southern summer, brings out the best picture of a city pregnant with blessings – when it comes to its perfect climate – that charms its peaceful residents and provides a unique romantic attachment to its visitors.
It’s on days like these, deep into the summer, when the rains have stopped briefly and usher in blue skies and sunny mornings that Harare shows its true colours as possibly the best city one could possibly live in the world – especially when you take into account the virtually negligible crime rate.
I should know because it has been my home for 50 years now, from the time that I was born in the then Rhodesia, to migrant British parents forever charmed by the beauty of the climate of this town, to this day when I am about to celebrate my Golden Jubilee as a proud father of three beautiful kids.
You could possibly say I have seen it all because I was six, and fully aware of what was going on around me, when my parents celebrated England’s World Cup success story in football with that defeat of Germany at Wembley in 1966 and was already a schoolboy when George Best and company helped Manchester United to European Cup success two years later.
It was probably strange that, against a family background embedded in football, the round ball didn’t become the game that charmed my heart as I grew up into someone whose mind could make decisions – sporting or otherwise – without the due influence of my father.
Maybe the frustration of not having a local team, which I could watch week in and week out, that challenged the world in football contributed to this movement from a family tradition of being the game’s supporters to my decision to fall in love with a game that was as different as it was complex.
I’ve been a loyal disciple of this game since those days when the world welcomed the ‘70s – with Pele and his Brazilians winning the World Cup in the Mexico sunshine with an artistry that took the global football audience to new levels.
Two things have made a big impression in my life since then – the mystical beauty of the city that I call home and the exploits of a merry band of players, from my country, who have used both bat and ball for the cause of my little Zimbabwe.
When Duncan Fletcher and his crew beat mighty Australia at the World Cup in 1983, it made headline news across the globe and, just like my father before me, gave me a team, a sporting discipline and heroes that I could identify with, the same way he had toasted England’s World Cup win in 1966.
Over the course of time things have changed, as they inevitably do, and my country has suffered a lot and, sadly, the game that is very close to my heart has also suffered immensely – battered by a conflict that had its roots in the politics that engulfed my nation.
It’s on days like these, deep into the summer when the sun is shining brightly over Harare, when the reminder comes – just like an alarm timer – of the changes that have happened to the game that will always be a part of my life.
Had everything been normal, Zimbabwe would be playing a home Test series against one of the powers of the world’s game, Andy Flower would probably have been in the coaching corner and – while chances are that we might have lost – it’s virtually guaranteed that we would have made a good fight of it.
So what happened?
Martin Williamson, a man whose articles I read a lot about on Cricinfo, recently painted a picture of the last decade of Zimbabwe cricket. I have my own painting, which might not be vintage Cricinfo, but which I believe is relevant.
There is no doubt that the sun is beginning to filter through the dark cloud that hanged over Zimbabwe cricket since we limped into the new millennium and the willingness of the administration, led by Peter Chingoka and Ozias Bvute, not only to accept but also to take an active part in the creation of a new dispensation, is refreshing.
The tragedy is that there appears to be a deliberate attempt, once again, by the forces that almost destroyed the game – individually and collectively – to try and sow the seeds of “divide and rule tactics†that almost took my sport into its graveyard.
Cricket in Zimbabwe wasn’t taken on the road into the doldrums by a group of black guys whom we believed didn’t know how to play a game, which has always been a big part of our lives, let alone manage its affairs.
The game was taken down that road by our collective failure – both black and white with the Indians playing a shadowy role in dividing us – to realize that our combined efforts were better put into development rather than the trenches we dug for a war that was not necessary.
Change is difficult to accept and when it appeared to be coming on the horizon, a number of people – mostly my fellow whites and their Indian counterparts who had been embedded in their comfort zones – did not read the signs well and, instead of the olive branch that could have worked wonders, we ran into the trenches.
Neither did the blacks read the situation well, too, because – in their naivety – they believed that cricket was just another game to us.
The truth is that it was not.
It was a big part of our lives and it defined who we were as a people – a small community united by bat and ball – that used the game’s trials and tribulation, over five days of a Test, as a mirror of our lives and, crucially, ability to defy the odds.
The pride that stemmed from being Rhodesians, a small community that believed it was so special it defied mighty Britain to declare UDI in 1965, it defied the odds to survive the barrage of sanctions that followed and it beat mighty Australia at the World Cup at the first time of asking.
The pride that stemmed from producing Kevin Curran and Duncan Fletcher, from producing a run-machine called Graeme Hick, a rugby superstar called Ian Robertson and a team of white ladies that would win the Olympic Games in hockey at the first time of asking in 1980.
Yes, in our small world – locked away from the razzmatazz of the globe – we believed we were God’s country, the little nation that had an economy to rival the best on the African continent, even under the barrage of sanctions, and live through it all without a sweat.
The white farmers, who controlled the economy, controlled cricket and, it became a part of their lives – the last thing within their control, dating back from the pre-independent days, when everything was changing.
So when the politics of this country touched agriculture and dramatic changes started taking place in that sector, ironically at a time when black players and administrators were knocking on the doors of cricket, it created a situation loaded with volatility that was just waiting to explode.
Williamson rightly points out that it did not help Zimbabwe cricket that the biggest supporters of those who went into the trenches, defending everything that was white, were the white countries like England, Australia and New Zealand. It split the argument into colours – black and white – and the fact that the powerful white media, fronted by Williamson and company, openly sided with the latter, only worsened a situation that was already terrible because genuine arguments were lost in the process.
At times the arguments bordered on racism, which is common when issues are split into black and white, and sober voices – which should have shaped opinion and helped the cause – ended up worsening a situation that was crying out for a helping hand.
There was a tendency to just go on the side of the rebellion, simply because it was fronted by whites and for a white cause, without looking at the merits of the case and the effect such articles were having on a situation that was desperate.
Cricket became the sporting face of Zanu-PF and Robert Mugabe, simply because he was the mere patron, and a tool that was being used to suppress the very whites that were being chased away from the farms.
It was easy to write that, as Wiliamson and company found out, at a time when global emotion was running high against Mugabe and the international media was feasting on Zimbabwe and challenging the Mugabe regime for every step that it took. White journalism had a field day, during a period when facts lost their relevancy and all that mattered was giving that Mugabe spin, and some good people had their images soiled simply because they found themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time.
I was part of the readership that took everything that was written hook, line and stick, because I believed that as a community, we had to accept all the helping hands that were coming to help us fight a regime that appeared bent on destroying our identity as Zimbabweans.
It was a period of madness, when the truth mattered little and probably hurt, and we saluted Henry Olonga when he joined Andy Flower in his protest against the death of democracy – using a cricket game for that – even when no one cared to remember Olonga after that.
It was lost to all of us that Flower, who was older than Olonga, was coming to the end of his playing days and, as a white man, he would be readily accepted in a British society that he had planned for himself – and his family – after his playing days. No one cared about Olonga, the black face that gave the message its weight, because once he had drummed it into the ears of the world, his part had been done.
Flower would soon carry a British passport, coach the English cricket team – something that gives me pride – while poor Henry, a product of an immigrant family like myself lured to Zimbabwe by the promise of the country, would fade into the horizon.
Bvute and Chingoka, either because of their naivety or their streak of stubbornness, were wrong to try and engage in a battle with the international media because, if an entire country like Zimbabwe had failed to win such a battle, what chances did two administrators dream of to get their hour of triumph?
So when Heath Streak fell out with the establishment the merits of his argument mattered little because, to Williamson and company, he was fighting the right war.
When his fellow white players joined him, there was no reason it appears, for a balance of the stories because they represented what was right.
So Andy Blignaut was owed money, as we were told by Cricinfo, and that was the reason he walked out. Fair and fine. Interestingly when the same player makes a move to return, as reported by the same website, all that money issue is not included.
Why?
Of course, the landscape has changed and the people who were fronting the war – especially the international journalists – have run out of steam and, crucially, out of the reason for the fight since Streak is back in the fold, Houghton is back in the fold and Alistair Campbell is back.
As long as the right faces are back, in terms of colour, there is no need to keep the war and the little paragraphs that were doing the damage, like claiming that Blignaut was owed money and taking it as a fact, have disappeared from the reports filed by Williamson and company.
It has been a long war and the game has suffered but, as they say, after every storm, there comes a period of calm. As we prepare to welcome the new era, which is pregnant with promise, my appeal is that we shouldn’t quickly forget the mistakes of the immediate past. Having been a Zimbabwean all my life, and a local cricket supporter for 40 years, I know what I am talking about when I say that there is huge potential, even among the black players of this country, to take this game to a new level.
The Zimbabwe we want, just like the Zimbabwe Cricket that we want, cannot be determined by a decade of one-sided articles from international journalists who used to push a certain cause nor by Bvute and Chingoka and all those who fought them, going back into the trenches and waging a war.
It can only be found by respect for each other, irrespective of the colour, and a frank admission of everyone – including Williamson, myself and fellow supporters who took sides, the players who rebelled, the administrators who didn’t read the story well, that we are all to blame for the mess that our game found itself in.
The key issue here is that in the moment of conflict we all helped to create a situation, pregnant with falsehoods, which was meant to ensure that the game wasn’t going to be governable, that the team that was going to be produced from that system would be weak and that everyone would use that alarming drop in standards to cry foul and paint a picture of a game crying out for help.
The game’s administrators like Bvute and Chingoka became the sorry pawns who were thrown into the frontline, in an international battle, where all the spoils were scheduled to go to the victors and the tragedy was that the international media did not help the situation with their blinded and one-sided coverage of the events.
Neither did the men who were at the centre of the onslaught, especially Bvute and Chingoka, read the politics well and – without a voice where they could be heard – they became soft targets who were thrashed day in and day out while their stubborn streak only hardened the resolve of their opponents to fight even harder.
Now, as the dust begins to settle and hope emerges on the horizon, it is important that we take the events of the last 10 years in their true context, for the sake of a better future for the game and our children, and that can only be helped by everyone accepting the terrible role that he or she played in that turmoil.
As light flickers, we have begun to see the true picture of Bvute as a media-friendly and competent chief executive officer of Zimbabwe Cricket – something that Williamson acknowledges – and something that has been key in getting back some of the old guard into the system.
A man who, in the past decade of conflict was labeled a hopeless character, has now emerged as the one with the hand of reconciliation who is not only a capable leader but appears to be working hard to ensure that the interests of this game override everything else.
The franchise system has ushered in hope, the return of the old guard has brought a dosage of promise, even Kepler Wessels’ son is now playing in the domestic game here in Zimbabwe and, for a country that was deemed a pariah state not so long ago, it is refreshing that we even have English professionals.
The political picture of Zimbabwe is changing for the better, day by day, and so is the game that was used as a pawn during a vicious decade in which its heart was almost ripped out of its body.
No one sees the black and white picture of yesterday anymore and that is why the Zimbabwe Under-19 captain at the current World Cup in New Zealand is a white teenage star and the coach is also white – showing to the world that the days when race was used to fight certain wars, which were bigger than the game, are over.
Even the minister, who is now in charge of sport, is a white lawyer and the touching moment came when Mugabe, upon receiving the Fifa World Cup Trophy at Harare International Airport recently, challenged David Coltart to produce local teams that will bring such trophies home.
That there was no global outcry, when the Zimbabwe’s teenage cricket stars were given visas to enter New Zealand for the World Cup, should have given all of us a lesson that things are really changing and the impasse of the past decade – which almost destroyed the game that I love dearly – is gone.
I’m told that the list of the people who have applied for the post to coach the national team alone shows the changes sweeping across the game and the confidence that has seeped back into a lot of minds that the game that I love is on its way back to life.
If I had the power, I would appoint Grant Flower, because he always appeared to be the one who was level-headed to me all the time.
That can wait for the future.
What is key now is that the sun has been shining brightly over Harare in recent days, they are playing cricket everywhere you go and the mood in the country is one of optimism rather than pessimism and, crucially, the experienced hands are back to play a part.
After a decade of turmoil, the point is that we can only get better and next month the national team will go to West Indies for five One Day Internationals, which I believe they have a good chance of winning, if they can keep their composure.
The surprising thing, it appears, is that after all the yokers that have been bowled at us, on such a sticky wicket in the past 10 years that were worse than Bodyline, we are not yet out and it’s something that the world needs to give credit to us for our resilience.
The future, which is important, should embrace the challenges of the past decade and we will see that the game – just like our lovely country – is bigger than the combined egos of all the people involved in it.