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Tristan Holmes
CRICKET has always been a family affair, but rarely as much as in Zimbabwe, with its tiny player base. In a Test against New Zealand in 1997, Zimbabwe fielded Grant and Andy Flower, Gavin and John Rennie, and Paul and Bryan Strang. Guy Whittall also played, and his cousin Andy was 12th man. You could draw it out further: Heath Streak’s father, Denis, played for Zimbabwe either side of independence, while Alistair Campbell’s brother, Donald, turned out for Zimbabwe A at the same time that Alistair was captaining the national side.

Yet all of those players were white. It wasn’t until the 1990s that cricket started to make its way into black families in a meaningful way.

Taibu’s younger brother, Kudzai, was an able wicketkeeper-batsman, while the Mwayenga brothers were another early duo discovered and encouraged by Bill Flower.

Allan Mwayenga was a left-arm seamer with an upright action; his younger brother Waddington was lankier but had raw pace.

Only Waddington and Tatenda went on to represent Zimbabwe

Then, of course, there are the Masakadzas. Their parents are not at home when Hamilton shows me in, but his younger brothers Shingi and Wellington are waiting.

Their father is at the second-hand car business he has owned and run for decades, while his mother, who has retired from her job at an insurance firm, is out at her smallholding, tending to crops.

The single-storey house in a well-swept yard has expanded since the family arrived here, prior to Hamilton’s birth in 1983.

Although it looks a little tired from the outside, the interior is smart and tidy. The three brothers slump into the lounge suite with glasses of Mazoe, the country’s flagship soft drink.

The six-year-old daughter of their oldest brother, Hilton, is home and her uncles begin a swift interrogation into why she did not go to school.

If there was a defining moment in the creation of this cricket family, it was Hamilton’s performance in the trials at the end of junior school, which earned him the scholarship to Churchill.

Attending a school with a proper cricket structure set him on the same route as his white counterparts on the other side of town: competitive schools cricket, club cricket (for Hungwe and Old Winstonians), a first-class debut at 16 and then into the Zimbabwe A side.

When West Indies came to town in the middle of 2001, Hamilton played both warm-up games against them.

Although his scores were not spectacular, he got a start in all four innings – enough to earn a call-up when Stuart Carlisle broke a finger in the first Test.

“It was a bit of a shock – I was only 17 and my progression had been so quick,” Hamilton recalls.

“It was all a bit of a blur for me at the time, but I got a lot of help from some of the senior guys in the team – especially Andy and Grant, who were really helpful. Henry Olonga was also in the set-up and helped. But it was mostly Andy, because he had played some club cricket with us at Takashinga.”

The Test did not start well.

Carl Hooper won the toss, stuck Zimbabwe in, and an attack of Reon King, Marlon Black, Colin Stuart and Neil McGarrell was good enough to bowl the hosts out for 131 inside two sessions. West Indies responded with 347 and Zimbabwe were 27 for 1 in the second innings when Masakadza joined Campbell at the start of day three.

By the close, Masakadza was 115 not out and Zimbabwe 324 for 4.

Already Zimbabwe’s youngest and first black centurion at first-class level, now he was the youngest debutant in the history of the game to make a century. On the wall in the Masakadza lounge is a picture of their father at Harare Sports Club, taken on the day of the century.

“My parents were very supportive of me, but they weren’t really able to come and watch. But I remember my dad was there during my debut. He had no idea what everybody was getting excited about when I was approaching my hundred. He had all sorts of guys calling him and telling him what was happening.”

The centurion had another interested spectator that day, except he was 80 kilometres from Harare Sports Club, at Kutama boarding school in Zvimba.

“We were watching on TV,” says Shingi. “I think I might have been more excited than he was.”

The achievement sparked something at Kutama. Shingi had played a bit of cricket, but gave it up around the age of nine for football. Now that there was fresh inspiration, Shingi and his friends approached Kutama about adding cricket to the sports programme, and requested funding from the ZCU. Facilities were put in.

Mangongo and Andy Blignaut came out for the official opening of the wicket, and coaches were secured on a regular basis.

In another photograph on the wall, Shingi is receiving the Sportsman of the Year award at Kutama. The man presenting the trophy is Mugabe, a former student.

Shingi’s route to the national side was more circuitous than Hamilton’s, and included a short stint with Dynamos, Zimbabwe’s biggest football club.

He continued to play club cricket for Takashinga, though, and one day Mangongo suggested that he switch from legspin to pace.

By the time a new franchise system was introduced, he had become a regular on the domestic scene, and in early 2010 he made his Zimbabwe debut, playing alongside his older brother.

Four years later, the Mountaineers franchise took the field in a four-day game against Eagles with three Masakadzas in their line-up.

Wellington was just seven years old when Hamilton scored that debut hundred, but here they were playing together in a first-class game.

The Masakadza trio became a fixture in the remaining Logan Cup games that season; Mountaineers won the competition by a huge margin, and all made telling contributions.

Wellington, a left-arm spinner, marked his debut with match figures of 8 for 89, Shingi took 18 wickets in four games at an average of 21, and Hamilton scored back-to-back centuries in the penultimate game to all but secure the title.

Zimbabwe cricket had a new first family. – Cricinfo.