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| Paid price for standing up to Mugabe, don't miss cricket much: Henry Olonga | | | agencies
ZIMBABWE, Nov 2: A black tweed coat, a woolen hat, spectacles and a leather bag in hand, former Zimbabwe pacer Henry Olonga walked into the Adelaide Oval looking like a professor teaching at the University of Adelaide across the river Torrens.
On a day when Zimbabwe lost to the Netherlands in the T20 World Cup, Olonga spoke about what the national team is doing, even though he is leading a life far away from the cricket field, which once gave him name and fame. Olonga wasn't a cricketing great, not even Zimbabwe's best during the golden era of the country's cricket, but the beaded hair, a slinging action and a mean bouncer to get Sachin Tendulkar out on a lifeless Sharjah track made him a household name in India. Not to forget his five-for at the Grace Road against India in the 1999 World Cup.
"I am a singer now. There is a lot of music in my life. I just did a couple of shows last Friday. My first solo performance without our band. It was just me and the audience," Olonga told PTI, sitting in an Adelaide coffee shop. "Post cricket, I did a lot of things, I played for Lashings XI along with the great Sachin Tendulkar for a couple of matches. VVS Laxman also played. I did a few commentary gigs many moons back," Olonga said, recollecting what his life was 15 years back. He is happily settled in one of Australia's quietest cities - Adelaide - with his family.
"Life then kind of took me to different directions. I have two daughters, elder one soon to be 12 and younger one is 10. My wife is an Australian citizen and I have applied for Australian citizenship too. Hope to get it sometime soon. "And once I qualify, you never know, you might see me on athletics track. Throwing javelin," he said, laughing out loud as a reference to his slinging action which got him called for chucking during his debut Test series in Pakistan back in 1995.
The lasting memory of Olonga in a Zimbabwe jersey was the 2003 World Cup when he and Andy Flower wore black arm-bands in one of the games as a protest against the Robert Mugabe-led government's policies and "mourning the death of democracy in the country". Olonga was against the Mugabe government's decision of seizing farm lands from white community. In fact, Olonga's protest back then was criticized by erstwhile Zimbabwean Information Minister Jonathan Mayo, who termed him "Uncle Tom with black skin and a white mask". It was a reference to the most iconic literary character 'Uncle Tom' from novel 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852.
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