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Heath Streak and the Zimbabwe situation

Barney Rubble

International Coach
I was given a valuable insight into the whole business that is going on in Zimbabwe recently by a man who came in to give a talk at my school. He is a Zimbabwean poet named Albert Nganyi who is very famous in his home country, apparently, having performed for and met Mandela and Mugabe. However, the interesting thing about him from a cricketing point of view is that he is good friends with Heath Streak.

During the course of his talk, he mentioned while discussing the racial tensions that occur within Zimbabwean administration of all kinds, not just cricket, he got onto the subject of the cricket situation. This is a rough transcript of what he said, and, not being totally clued up on the whole "Rebel" situation, I wondered if it revealed anything new:

"I was talking to Heath Streak just the other day about the problems he has been having with his team, because as you know, he has had a lot to deal with recently, and he was saying to me that the reason all these problems occurred in the first place was that the selectors weren't giving him the best team possible to play cricket. He said to me " they are picking players who are their nephews, or their friends' nephews, some of them because they are white, some because they are black, but I don't care. They are not picking players because they are good, they are picking them for every other reason they can find. I don't care who plays for my team, whether they are black or white or where they are from, as long as they can play cricket. All I want is a good team, I don't care who's in it."

This might be repetition of things he's already said, but I thought as it wasn't said to the media, but to a personal friend, who happened to pass it on to me, I thought it might shed some light on the situation.
 

Langeveldt

Soutie
Barney Rubble said:
"I was talking to Heath Streak just the other day about the problems he has been having with his team, because as you know, he has had a lot to deal with recently, and he was saying to me that the reason all these problems occurred in the first place was that the selectors weren't giving him the best team possible to play cricket. He said to me " they are picking players who are their nephews, or their friends' nephews, some of them because they are white, some because they are black, but I don't care. They are not picking players because they are good, they are picking them for every other reason they can find. I don't care who plays for my team, whether they are black or white or where they are from, as long as they can play cricket. All I want is a good team, I don't care who's in it."
If only guys like Heath Streak were in politics.. A truly colourblind role model and legend..
 

Barney Rubble

International Coach
Langeveldt said:
If only guys like Heath Streak were in politics.. A truly colourblind role model and legend..
Damn right. I've got a lot of respect for the man, more than I do for most professional sportsmen these days. *cough* England football team *cough*
 

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