Zimbabwe's unsung hero on cricket's role in reuniting his nation

Times

19-05-2025

When Andy Flower and Henry Olonga made the brave decision to take a stand against what they called the 'death of democracy' in Zimbabwe during the 2003 World Cup, it was to their fellow countryman, David Coltart, they turned for advice and moral support. For his part, Coltart wanted to make sure the pair were going into it with their eyes wide open, fully aware of the possible consequences of making an enemy of a man such as Robert Mugabe.
Coltart's eyes have been wide open in Zimbabwe for a long time. In the late 1990s, when he was called 'an enemy of the state' by Mugabe, he worked closely with the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, exposing human rights abuses in the Matabeleland a decade earlier. By turn a human rights activist, lawyer, politician, founding member of the Movement for Democratic Change and the present Mayor of Bulawayo, Coltart, 67, has stayed the course in his country, at significant personal risk.
He says there have been five assassination attempts on his life. 'Mostly they have been tied to interfering with my motor vehicle. The most serious was in 2003 when my vehicle with two of my children was chased through the streets in Bulawayo and my security team saved me by intercepting what I think were military people with AK47s. I've had a further one [attempt] in the last two years when my brake lines were interfered with. So it continues.'
Has he, or his family, ever thought about leaving the country? 'We've stayed. We've got four children. Nine grandchildren. They are all in the country. Our son is a human rights lawyer in Harare. He has been detained himself and tortured, but he keeps going. I was born there. My wife was born there. Our children were born here. It's our country, just as you would stay in Britain even if there was a tyranny here to try and resolve it.
'We are buoyed by the incredible goodwill, evidenced in my election as mayor. I'm white, a tiny minority in a city of 800,000 people, but I was voted in my own constituency with an 86 per cent majority and was unanimously elected as mayor. That's not a statement about me, but about the goodwill of black Zimbabweans. That is what sustains us. You have to walk the streets with me to see the level of goodwill and warmth. So we've never contemplated leaving.'
Nevertheless, when Flower and Olonga approached him for advice on making their protest statement and playing with black armbands during that World Cup of 2003, he wanted to make them aware of the possible consequences. 'They sought a meeting with me and we met in my office at home. They wanted broad advice; there were terrible human rights violations going on. So I obviously tried to enable them.
'We worked through the issues but also the possible adverse consequences, so that they went into it fully prepared. They asked me to edit their statement so they let me have a first draft. I didn't change it dramatically, just sort of fine-tuned it and gave them advice [on] how to handle it. I've remained very close friends with them ever since.
'I have great admiration for them. It was a courageous thing. It adversely affected their cricketing careers. They both knew there would be a price to pay, particularly for Henry because he felt more under threat. It was an even higher price that Henry had to pay. Andy got wonderful coaching positions; Henry never really came back to cricket and he's fortunate that he's very talented in other areas.' Olonga now lives in Australia, pursuing a career as a singer.
That period, when Flower and Olonga protested and England pulled out of their World Cup fixture in Zimbabwe, was a fitting place for our conversation in London last Friday to begin. Coltart was in town to promote the Street Child Cricket World Cup, a festival of cricket for street children the world over, which will be held in Bulawayo shortly before the 2027 Cricket World Cup. Zimbabwe will stage some matches alongside Namibia, with the bulk in South Africa, and staging the tournament again will bring the recent story of cricket in Zimbabwe full circle.
In that gap of 22 years, the sport and the country have been through the wringer, something Coltart has witnessed in his various roles and as Minister for Education, Sports and Culture between 2009 and 2013 in a government of national unity. A brief sketch since Test status was granted would reveal the competitive years of the late 1990s; Test exile between 2005-11 and years of near administrative and financial collapse; and then a return to Test cricket and gradual recovery, to the point where Coltart describes cricket now as very much 'the national game'.
It is hard to separate sport and politics in any discussion of Zimbabwe cricket, not least because of the political interference, which led to a suspension from the ICC in 2019, but also because of a parallel decline in each. It was impossible for a sport to flourish in a country with rampant hyperinflation, severe depression, restrictions on freedom of expression, and institutional failure resulting in societal collapse as evidenced by a devastating outbreak of cholera in 2008. While the game could not flower on such stony ground, the seeds were never quite extinguished.
'We had the second-highest inflation rate in the world in 2007 and 2008,' Coltart says. 'That was reflected in the cricket team. We were certainly in the top ten at one stage and had a team that you couldn't disregard. The catastrophic decline when players like Heath Streak left and a young team was left to pick up the pieces was a reflection of the country. We stabilised the country during the government of national unity and we stabilised cricket.' He adds, though, that the sport 'has never fully recovered'.
Against the odds, cricket in the country staggered on to the point where, now, some optimism has returned. 'It is arguably the most popular game in Zimbabwe now and it's demonstrated in the crowds that we get and the incredible passion, especially among black Zimbabweans. And we rejoice in that,' Coltart says.
Coming out of the worst of the Mugabe years, which ended in 2017, Zimbabwe's problems are still acute, with Human Rights Watch warning of the 'repression of civil and political rights' during the most recent election and 'abductions, arbitrary detention and torture' of political activists thereafter. Coltart has been, and continues to be, a stern critic but has always advocated for sporting connections, helping to bring Zimbabwe back into the Test fold in 2011, and aware of the power of sport to unite and bind.
In Bulawayo, where Coltart has been mayor for just under two years, he says the talent is undeniable but the challenges after decades of neglect are real, with infrastructure outliving its economic lifespan and a deterioration in roads and services. 'We are stabilising it, and are making some progress, but it's years of neglect that needs to be undone.
'The other weakness is the state of our schools. Our schools have always been one of our strongest components of cricket, and although the independent schools are still strong; many of the government schools have collapsed. Milton in Bulawayo, which produced the likes of Pommie Mbangwa, and Plumtree, which produced Henry Olonga, need further investment to guarantee the flow of talent in future.
'If you came back to Queen's [the main ground in Bulawayo], it's in reasonable condition. The pitch is good. Ian Botham once said that if you could take any pitch around in your suitcase, it would be that one. But the stands are run down and it needs a coat of paint. It's emblematic of the city.'
The World Cup will help, with matches and investment planned for Bulawayo (as well as Harare and a new stadium at Victoria Falls) and the attendant media and tourist interest attached to it. 'I love it [Bulawayo] with a passion. It's got great museums and great galleries. It is undermarketed as a tourist destination and people are not aware of its glories. I recently took the US ambassador biking on a trail in the Matobo Hills and she was blown away.'
In relatively stable countries, where democracy is entrenched and civil society taken for granted, we see sport through a performance and personality lens, whereas more challenged societies recognise the essential power of it in a completely different, more fundamental way. 'When you look at the support for the Zimbabwean team now, it's enthralling. The terrible racism of the past in our country is gone when we are [watching cricket] at Queen's or in Harare.
'The support for a player like Sean Williams; black Zimbabweans don't care about the colour of his skin. We rejoice, as a white community, in Blessing Muzarabani [Zimbabwe's best fast bowler] and to that extent sport is a very powerful instrument in binding a nation together.' One of those brave and inspiring people that you meet from time to time on the periphery of sport, Coltart has played his part, too.