Cricket: Optimism for game in Zimbabwe remains

Taf Madondo has high hopes for the future of Zimbabwean cricket. Yes, you read that right. While the majority of the cricket playing world urges the International Cricket Council to kick the chaotic Zimbabwean Cricket Union and its playing representatives out of full-member status, Madondo urges caution.

His brother Trevor was the first black batsman to play for Zimbabwe but died of malaria at the ridiculously young age of 24. He struggled initially but scored 74 not out at the Basin Reserve in his final test.

Six months later he was dead.

He was picked as the ZCU promoted black players during a turbulent time for cricket in the country but that pales in comparison with what is happening now.

Taf is 24 and, while his ambitions to follow his brother into international sport have waned, he doesn't want to see the ambitions of his fellow countrymen quashed by an edict handed down from the game's lawmakers.

He was playing with many who now represent Zimbabwe at age-group level and keeps in contact with guys like Dion Ebrahim.

"They're quite positive about the future. They believe there are opportunities for Zimbabwean cricket, it's just limited at this stage."

Madondo admits he does not like watching the "hidings".

"But we used to, at under-13 levels, after apartheid ended, go to South Africa and play provincial teams there and get hidings there. But by about 1999 it had turned around. Once we got a bit of momentum we were competitive. It took a while though."

When Madondo, 24, took a call from his sister informing him that his brother had died at the age most enter their prime, he decided to pursue his dream in New Zealand.

His dream was, you would imagine, an unusual one for a 20-year-old Southern African: to play fullback for the All Blacks.

"At the time Christian Cullen - he was the man - was the best fullback in the world and I used to play fullback. The death of my brother hit me and I realised I had to do something with my life."

So he took off for New Zealand with little idea how the immigration system worked.

"The only reason they let me in was because I had rugby boots. Immigration let me through; we were in the Commonwealth then.

"I was playing for Waitakere City in the first year then went to University and realised pretty quickly..." Here Madondo, who has a perfectly clipped English accent that is the legacy of private schooling at one of Harare's most prestigious schools, bursts into laughter as he recalled the moment he realised his dream was never going to be a reality.

"You pretty much have to be a rugby-head to do all that. So I went back to playing cricket."

He's at Howick-Pakuranga now, under the coaching of Dipak Patel. He has a working permit and realises he's never going to play for New Zealand at cricket, either. However, he found batting in Zimbabwe more difficult because of the desperation of the bowlers he faced.

Cricket, for some, is a chance to leave poverty behind; New Zealanders don't have that motivation.

Asking Madondo to comment on the situation back home is difficult.

"We're getting into fragile territory," he saide.

The Madondos still live in Harare and his father described it to Taf as "living through a Renaissance". Others have been less generous, with some emigrants believing those left living under the Robert Mugabe cloud are like frogs in a pot of slowly boiling water, not realising they are in trouble until it's too late.

Certainly, Madondo is under no illusion as to how "messy" it is back home during this "transitional period", which is still claiming cricket victims. Here Madondo can walk to the shop knowing there will be bread to buy; he can go to a gas station and fill his car up with petrol. He can play a bit of cricket, too.

That's probably why, in the knowledge his countrymen aren't guaranteed the first two commodities, he doesn't want them denied a chance at the third.


- HERALD ON SUNDAY