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Blood, sweat and treason
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My story, Henry Olonga, Vision Sports Publishing, 2010
Henry Blofeld writes in the introduction, “This is book which must be read. It tells an extraordinary story about one man’s beliefs and how he acted upon them in a way which should be an inspiration to all of us”. This is not an exaggeration. At times you feel that were this a novel, you would dismiss it as being too far fetched. It is the true account of one man’s amazing life.
The book includes kidnap and death treats. Henry’s account of his own political journey from seeing Mugabe as a national hero to his willingness to risk his life to stand for justice in Zimbabwe is gripping. There is an undercurrent of racism. Henry is the first black player to play for Zimbabwe but often feels ostracized. Drama is never far away; we see him break into the test team, take his first test wicket, only to be called for throwing shortly afterwards.
While most of struggle to be good enough to succeed at one thing, the book documents Henry’s lasting dilemma as to whether he should major on cricket or music. To some extent he manages to keep both.
Henry’s life is defined by the black armband protest, in the World Cup which ended his professional cricket career and led to his exile from Zimbabwe. The inside story of how the protest was conceived makes fascinating reading.
is humour comes out when playing a game of cricket against women, when he hopes to hear the umpire shout “no balls”.
The chaos of Zimbabwean cricket beggars belief – failing to progress in the tournaments because the management miscalculated the required run-rate. He does not mince his words when describing games where he felt Zimbabwe had been cheated by local umpires (See Pages 115-6)
His Christian faith underpins his actions. Already in the acknowledgments at the beginning of the book, he writes “My first thanks go to my God as I have been sustained in great times of trouble”.
From a pure sports perspective I appreciated the honesty with which he dealt with some of the flashpoints in his career. He shares his frustration with his own inconsistency, how he could be arguably the fastest bowler in the world one day and unable to hit the proverbial barn-door the next. (Page 207 for example).
As a fast-bowler, intimidation is part of his armoury. He writes honestly about the ethics of intimidation and his feeling when he hits a batsman (Pages 82-83).
My nitpicks are that Jeff [Geoff] Thompson and Frans [Franz] Cronje have their names misspelt (Pages 82 and 112) and that there is some confusion in the story on page 192 where it is not clear if he was he stumped off a wide or run-out off a no-ball.
This is one of the most significant and gripping sports books ever. Read it.