Streak is right

Streak is right

By Oswald Sibanda
Sports Editor
12/04/04
HEATH Streak, the man that the Zimbabwe Cricket Union would like you all out there to believe is a racist monster bent on preventing black players from playing cricket is nothing but a cricketing genius who loves the people and his country.

The ZCU has told lies repeatedly and sullied Heath Streak’s reputation. You have been told that Streak wrote a letter to the ZCU threatening to resign from ‘all forms of cricket’ unless his ‘demands’ were met.

STREAK REVOLT GROWS

False.

No such letter exists.

Here is a young professional who has refused to bow down to a cricket body that plays politics at the expense of national interest.

If anything, Heath Streak is a national hero. Surely, if this Heath Streak is the racist we are told to believe he is he wouldn’t have stood for, and passed the O’ Level exam for the native Ndebele language with a B grade.

Out of all sporting competitions, cricket is the only sport that has internationalised Zimbabwe, but there has been a marked decline in our national game.

It is not hard to find the reasons for this. Several senior Test players like Murray Godwin, Henry Olonga, the Strang brothers, Andy Flower and Grant Flower have all dumped the team.

The man who wants you to believe Streak is a racist monster - Peter Chingoka - is himself an obdurate racist devil whose actions are informed by the same spirit that led Chenjerai Hunzvi to seize white owned farms.

Chingoka has presided over the shaming of Zimbabwean cricket, and is a leading advocate for gate-crashing black players into the team, forget whether they are talented or not.

New Zimbabwe.com holds no brief for racist fanatics, be they black or white.

There is an obdurate, racist white minority that still remains in our cricket. Similarly, there is a dangerous racist hooligan by the name of Chingoka who presides over our national game.

There is nothing wrong with getting blacks to play cricket. But there is everything wrong with getting young, inexperienced and sometimes untalented people to play cricket – simply because they are black.

We would love to see an all black Zimbabwean cricket team out there. For Gods’ sake, 99 percent of Zimbabweans are black.

Chingoka, the revisionist, racist historian is so obsessed with correcting ‘past imbalances’ that he has lost focus and direction.

Zimbabwe is a good team. We know we can play the game. But we don’t deserve Chingoka. He is pulling us down.
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