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Flower feels Olonga has much more to lose than him | London:
Retired Zimbabwe international Andy Flower has paid tribute to his former teammate
Henry Olonga, with whom he protested against President Robert Mugabe’s regime
during the World Cup in South Africa earlier this year. The
two players made headlines during cricket’s showpiece event, wearing black armbands
to “mourn the death of democracy” in Zimbabwe, but Flower believes the younger
Olonga, the first black cricketer to represent his country, had much more to lose.
“He was a black icon in Zimbabwe and the perfect role model for youngsters,” the
34-year-old Flower wrote in a column for Britain’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper.
“The easy path for him to have taken would have been to stay in cricket and not
say anything. I realise that he had much more to lose than I did over this issue
and my respect for him is immense.” Flower, a world-class
batsman who quit the international game last month after Zimbabwe’s failure to
reach the World Cup semi-finals, is playing English County cricket for Essex this
season. The 26-year-old Olonga, who went into hiding
after the World Cup amid reports that the Zimbabwean secret police were looking
for him, has also retired and is in England on a six-month work permit to play
club cricket and do TV commentary. Olonga, a gifted
singer who has said he could look to music as an alternative career, played his
50th and final ODI for Zimbabwe in the World Cup Super Six clash with Kenya in
Bloemfontein on March 12. “He is now getting his
life sorted out over here (in England),” said Flower, who played 63 Tests for
Zimbabwe, making 4,794 runs and averaging a world-class 51.54 with 12 hundreds. “He
is a smart, charismatic guy who will not be short of career options, whether it
is cricket commentary, music or art. We speak regularly and have definitely become
closer friends since we made our stand over ‘the death of democracy’ in our country.” Flower
added that he had mixed feelings over Zimbabwe’s two-Test series in England later
this year. “There will be demonstrations and I actually think that will be a positive
thing, because it will give the human-rights activists a chance to highlight the
problems in Zimbabwe,” he said. Zimbabwe will play
two Tests against England, starting at Lord’s on May 22, and a tri-series beginning
on June 26. “I have mixed feelings about whether
this tour should take place,” added Flower. “But I do not think that sporting
sanctions against Zimbabwe will necessarily work. They did during the apartheid
years in South Africa because of the importance South Africans attach to sport. Zimbabwe
was suspended from the Commonwealth last year after allegations that Mugabe had
rigged his re-election as President. Meanwhile,
a prominent opponent of Mugabe accused the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB)
on Saturday of colluding in a “political loyalty test” ahead of the Africans tour
here. Peter Tatchell, organiser of the London-based
stop-the-tour campaign, said the ECB had accepted the right of the Zimbabwe Cricket
Union (ZCU) to politically vet its players. This, Tatchell said, flew in the face
of the ECB’s previously-stated policy that cricket and politics should be kept
separate. “The Zimbabwe Cricket Union is not an
independent sporting body,” said Tatchell, best known as a homosexual rights campaigner.
“President Mugabe is patron of the ZCU. His authority was required before the
tour could go ahead. He controls the ZCU. All Zimbabwe’s players are politically
approved. “Only those uncritical of Mugabe were
eligible for selection”, Tatchell added. | 
