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Zimbabwe cricket star tells of strain

By Peta Thornycroft

Harare Aug. 19. Heath Streak, the newly-appointed captain of Zimbabwe's national cricket team, returned home to his family's ranch on Sunday, wondering if he would be arrested and jailed to join his father Dennis, who was detained on Friday.

Streak, 28, picked to lead Zimbabwe to next year's World Cup in South Africa, told The Daily Telegraph of the strain the current turmoil is placing upon him and the mainly white team.

"I am proud to be a Zimbabwean and to play for my country — it is my home — but it is very hard for us,'' he said in Harare on Sunday.

"We wore black armbands in India and Pakistan after a farmer who was a friend of one of the team was killed in 2000. We wore them in Britain earlier this year when another farmer, Terry Ford, was killed.''

Streak, a fast bowler who has played for Hampshire, was in Harare last week when his father, who farms in Matabeleland, southern Zimbabwe, was arrested along with 12 neighbours — most of them ranchers.

Two turned themselves in to police in solidarity with their friends. Their crime was defying an August 8 deadline to leave their homesteads under controversial land reform plans.

President Robert Mugabe's government has ordered 2,900 of the country's remaining 4,500 white commercial farmers to quit their land without compensation, but nearly two thirds of these have stood their ground. Several farmers have been killed in violent land seizures over the past two years.

Heath Streak's wife Nadine gave birth to their first child, Charlotte, last week. "I'm going home with my baby, and perhaps in the next few days we'll know whether there's a place for us in Zimbabwe,'' he said. "I'm a third-generation Zimbabwean. I can't imagine living anywhere else.''

A source close to the national cricket authorities said: "The guys are under incredible pressure. President Mugabe is their patron. If any of them were to speak out, they'd be breaking the terms of their contract with the Zimbabwe Cricket Union. They would also place their families, who are mostly farmers, in even more danger".

"They all need the salaries they earn as national cricketers, especially now, when their families are forced to leave the farms. But some of them have thought of walking out in protest at what is happening on the farms.''

The cricket insider added: "Some of us believe, as happened during apartheid, that there can be no normal sport in an abnormal society, and that World Cup (qualifying) matches should not be played in Zimbabwe next year.'' — Copyright, Telegraph Group Ltd., London 2002

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