Witnessing democracy in cricket in beloved Zimbabwe

Inflation is through the roof. Potholes are through the road. The economy is thready and threadbare. An election pitting a complacent ruling party against splintered opposition looms in August. Yet visceral happiness is concentrated among the thousands in the stands of the country's cricket grounds, where bliss flows at least as bountifully as beer.

On the field, too, not a lot seems to go wrong. The men's national team have earned 10 wins and a draw in 15 completed matches across the formats this year. If that seems unconvincing consider that they won none out of 14 as recently as 2020. Or one of 14 in 1992 and none of 17 in 1993, years when established and future giants like David Houghton, Andy Pycroft, Andy Waller, Grant Flower, Andy Flower, Alistair Campbell, Eddo Brandes, John Traicos and Heath Streak were in the XI.

Cricket in Zimbabwe is enjoying a moment of unprecedented positivity and social and racial unity. And that in a place where the polar opposite has, more often than not, been the case in the game and beyond. How had things gone so right?

"It's that Zimbabwe is winning somewhere," Sikandar Raza said. "Zimbabweans are very proud people, and cricket is the only source of happiness they have. They forget about all the troubles we might have in our lives. It is pure joy because the team is winning."

That explains the bumper attendances. Zimbabwe's men's World Cup qualifiers' match against West Indies at the 10,000-seater Harare Sports Club (HSC) was sold out. Thousands more gathered at an adjacent fan park. They roared their team to victory. But what explains the winning?

Houghton, according to Raza and Craig Ervine in recent press conferences. Appointed in June 2022 in the wake of Zimbabwe eking out 21 wins in 90 games under Lalchand Rajput, Houghton has guided the team he once captained - and coached at the 1999 World Cup, where they beat India and South Africa and reached the Super Sixes - to 23 victories in 45 completed matches.

Houghton has done so with confidence, intelligence, empathy and professionalism. In a society that reveres heroes like few others, it helps that he is among those heroes. His players have responded accordingly. They will have to forget all of that if they are to play poorly enough not to nail down one of the two World Cup berths reserved for the finalists at the qualifiers.

"It's hard for me to sit here and take credit for the way our guys are playing," Houghton told a press conference after Zimbabwe beat West Indies. "I think I've given the guys a little bit more belief in their own ability. There is so much more quality, depth and skill in this team than there was in the days when I played. All we needed to do was get it out of them."

There is indeed more to Zimbabwe's leap of faith than Houghton. In the qualifiers, there has been the batting of Craig Ervine, Sean Williams and Raza, who have all scored centuries, three of them by Williams, and the bowling of Richard Ngarava and Raza, who have taken 21 wickets between them.

Something has also been missing: meddling by self-important, power hungry administrators.

That started changing in August 2015 when Tavengwa Mukuhlani became Zimbabwe Cricket's (ZC) chair, severing cricket's ties to an old order that put patronage, self-enrichment and a tangle of conflicts of interest ahead of perceived minor interests like the welfare of the game. Mukuhlani's first major challenge was to negotiate a better deal for the USD27-million ZC owed to an assortment of banks, some of them part-owned by the ZC administrators who had created the loans, as well as the ICC.

It took five years, and help from government and guarded compassion from the ICC, to pay the bill. While that was happening Zimbabwe's regime changed, which meant Mukuhlani had to make cricket's case to Emmerson Mnangagwa's government all over again, having just made it to Robert Mugabe's. All while avoiding the patronage-enrichment-conflicts traps that had blighted the game.

"We worked with the ICC to restructure the debt," Givemore Makoni, who has been ZC's managing director since September 2018, said. "It took some time but we've managed to clear it. We worked with our reserve bank, who were very helpful. Once we had dealt with it we refocused on the game itself. We looked at all the important areas and tried to address them, and that has resulted in what you're seeing today."

Mukuhlani and Makoni have driven a culture change at an organisation that used to be a bolthole for parasitic suits who didn't seem to understand - or care - that players were their only assets. "Givemore Makoni has an open-door policy with the senior guys," Raza said. "Whenever we have an issue we go directly to him and he gives us his ear. More often than not he gives us what we want. That has brought everybody together. Everybody who is part of ZC, working in any capacity, have been brought closer to the players and that has brought the players closer to them. There's a feeling of oneness. If our team does well, the board, the management and the administration look good. If our team do badly, it also reflects on all of us."

Makoni gets that loud and clear: "It's important to keep the players happy. It's also important to keep them focused on their core business - playing cricket and delivering good results. A lot of consideration has been put into what the players want, and how we address that. The players are the product, and you've got to keep the product polished and shiny so that it competes at the highest level.

"We are here for the players and the fans. It's not about management. It's about bat and ball; it's about the results we are seeing on the pitch. That is what will attract people to associate with us."

Reaching this stage of relative shininess took a lot of polishing. Besides the weighty, high-interest debt and the mafia mentality, years of overt hostility towards players and coaches meant cricket's human resources had drained away to other countries. Houghton's presence in the dugout is a vote of confidence in ZC's new sensibility. As a fixture on the county coaching circuit, he didn't need to take on the myriad challenges of life and work in Zimbabwe. He had the choice to come home or not, and he chose home - initially as ZC's coaching manager in October 2021.

There is no better marketing than winning, but ZC have ensured everything from international to franchise, domestic and club cricket in Zimbabwe was "in people's faces", Makoni said. "Whenever the national team are playing we've made noise. When we won the bid to host the qualifiers we made the kind of noise we might have made to host the actual World Cup. People know exactly what's happening with cricket. It's on radio, TV, social media ..."

Time was when covering cricket in Zimbabwe could be done without many taxi drivers, shopkeepers, restaurant waitrons, bartenders or hotel staff being any the wiser. If they did find out they were puzzled: someone sent you all the way here just to report on cricket? Really? Now every taxi driver, shopkeeper, restaurant waitron, bartender and hotel staff member knows not just which teams won and lost that day but who the starring players were, which sides will play the next day, and which teams need to do what to stay in the running in the standings. Covering cricket in Zimbabwe has become not unlike doing so in India, minus the masses and the one-eyed obsession with the national team's performance.

That is reserved for football, but Zimbabwe haven't played since Fifa suspended the national body in February 2022. Was cricket simply, and temporarily, filling the void? "We've offered an alternative, which people have jumped on," Makoni said. "Even when football was running we were getting decent crowds, especially when our national team played. This has been a long-term plan that we've been slowly achieving. The banning of football has accelerated the pace of what we're trying to achieve."

Andy Flower wears his Zimbabwe heart on his sleeve. Even so he has been struck by the game's new reality: "I was so taken by the crowd at HSC at the Windies game. It was genuinely amazing to see and inspiring to be part of. The closest I've seen to it at HSC would have been in 1992, just before the World Cup, when South Africa popped in [to play a 50-over friendly]. There was much interest in that game, obviously, because of South Africa being our big brother.

"But now, having to close the gates at 11 o'clock in the morning, having circa 4,000 people in the rugby ground watching on a big screen, that's impressive. However it was the spirit of joy and abundant energy and fun and love of the game and connection with the team - that's what really stood out.

"I've experienced cricket all round the world. It's fun to be in the West Indies. They play music, they play drums, and they genuinely have fun in the stands. But they don't sing all day. Many thousands of people in India have fun in the stands. They watch the cricket avidly, and it's so incredibly noisy sometimes you can't hear yourself shout at each other in the middle. But they don't sing all day, embracing the joy of the moment. That was really stark and amazing to experience.

"But I do think the best thing about that is it indicates a healthy future for Zimbabwe cricket. Because if there are people enjoying the game to that extent - not just the people in the ground; Zimbabweans around the country watching on TV would have seen that energy, and word of mouth will get around - they are also seeing more black and Asian role models than in our day.

"Youngsters will see Blessing Muzarabani bouncing the ball or Innocent Kaia smacking it over mid-on. That's evidence that there's a path to the top. They need to see that to make them believe during those early days. That's how I remember fantasising about playing international cricket; seeing Graeme Pollock or Dave Houghton play and going, 'Gee, I want to do that.' When you play in the garden you're being those people. That's what these young Zimbabwean cricketers will be thinking and feeling and fantasising about."

Flower has done his bit to fulfill those fantasies. He and his father, Bill Flower, played an instrumental role in establishing Takashinga, a club in the heart of Highfield, a major but impoverished black residential area in Harare. Bill found the land for the then-unnamed club and raised funds to turn it into a cricket ground. Andy remembers "digging the holes for the nets". He also played for Takashinga, which has produced players of the calibre of Hamilton Masakadza and Tatenda Taibu. The ground became an international venue in May 2019, when it hosted eight games in the women's T20 World Cup Africa region qualifiers. In August 2021 Zimbabwe played Thailand there in three women's T20s. Takashinga will host nine matches in the current qualifiers.

"It's brilliant to see those facilities available to kids in Highfield without them having to drive for an hour before they get to a ground elsewhere in Harare," Andy Flower said. "They've got facilities right there, where some of the best players in the world have just played. Jason Holder's just been there, Nicholas Pooran has smacked the ball over the gum trees, the Netherlands boys put on a show against the West Indies there. I really hope ZC and the decision-makers in this country harness that energy and do something really good with it."

Flower played 276 matches for Zimbabwe in a career spanning 11 years. He remains their leading runscorer in Tests and ODIs - and is counted among the game's finest wicketkeeper-batters.

Opportunities to reach those heights weren't available to black Zimbabweans of Makoni's generation. But he was also involved, spade in hand, in Takashinga's beginnings. He chaired the club on February 10, 2003 - when Flower and Henry Olonga wore black armbands during Zimbabwe's World Cup match against Namibia at HSC to, they said in a statement, "mourn the death of democracy in our beloved Zimbabwe". Takashinga labelled their actions "disgraceful", and expelled Olonga from the club. Neither Flower nor Olonga played for Zimbabwe after the tournament. Both moved to England. Olonga has settled in Australia.

Flower has returned only twice since 2003; the first time five years ago and now as a television commentator. The nation's future seems fragile and imperfect, but given what he has seen was he able to celebrate the life of democracy in cricket, at least, in his beloved Zimbabwe?

The question prompts one of the sharpest, most thoughtful and articulate people in sport to put a hand across his brow, shielding his eyes. Fifty-three silent seconds pass before he raises his gaze. A single tear bejewels his cheekbone.

He speaks in a low, breathy, suddenly sandpapery voice: "In answer to your question, yes. I think that is the case. It's wonderful to see all the races mixing like we've just witnessed in a playing XI, in the crowd, in the commentary box ..."

His hand goes back to his brow. Another 33 seconds tick by in exquisite quiet. "Sorry. That was quite an emotional time back then ..."

Flower's hand covers his eyes again. Twenty-four more seconds slip away before he finishes his sentence: " ... and so it's really heartening to see that transformation now."

The vulnerability of the moment is trapped not in what Flower says, but in the amber between his words. The hush is filled with birdsong, breeze and the dry, dusty warmth of a golden winter afternoon. Inflation, potholes, the economy and the election seem impossibly far away, and brown, black and white people like Raza, Makoni and Flower concur: whatever else Zimbabwe is and isn't, it is beloved.