Remember me as part of cricket, not blind

10 years of commenting and reporting have gone by and what interesting times they have been.
We were living in Kadoma at the time I was slowly introduced to cricket broadcasting. It was back in June of 2001 and Zimbabwe were about to engage India in a two Test match series.

I was in the process of recovering after having my eye removed and to add to the drama, my father was suddenly retrenched, which obviously meant that no money whatsoever was coming in. To say that things were tight was putting it mildly.

I knew that former Zimbabwe icon David Houghton was going to be part of the commentary team and I called him up, simply inquiring if there would be coverage to Zimbabwean viewers as in those days the television channels were rather selective as to which cricket matches they were going to show.

Minutes later I received a frantic phone call from my late brother telling me that Houghton was passing through Kadoma to pick me up as the first Test match was played in Bulawayo.
As happy and as grateful as I was for this act of kindness, I was very worried as I had very little money in my pocket and to make matters worse, my old friend and teenage hero Dave Houghton suddenly developed a hearing problem when I asked him where on earth I would be staying.

Instead he went into a deep and meaningful conversation about playing Test cricket in winter and what the pitch would be like which, needless to say, left me very concerned and worried. However, I should have known better because not only had he arranged accommodation for me but himself and Andy Pycroft gave me the task of trying to motivate a promising young player by the name of Travis Friend who had huge talent but the heart of a pea.

Slowly but surely the players started to talk to me and even spend time with me and soon enough the television crew noticed this and asked me if they could interview me about my passion for the game.
This was my first time appearing on TV and I was hoping and praying that the butterflies I had inside would fly in formation once we got underway. I was interviewed over the tea period but what will I remember most is not that it was the start of something truly special but that Andrew Flower, who at the time was ranked the world’s number one Test batsman, actually delayed the start of the third and final session as he

listened attentively to my thoughts and opinions as to how the Test match would pan out before he and brother Grant went out to resume the innings.
That alone means more than any achievement I have had and will ever have. One humourous moment worth mentioning, in that same series, was when I was invited to join the players for a few drinks after a ODI we narrowly lost to India by.

The drinks were beginning to flow and the sombre mood of losing had been replaced by a reflective mood which made me realise that I had to lighten up the atmosphere. As many people may or may not know I have been blind since birth and no longer have my natural eyes.

So I removed my glass eye and tapped Alistair Campbell on the shoulder. As he turned around I gently placed the eye in his hand and although a convulsive shudder shook his body, he kept his composure remarkably well and after a few seconds of shock and loathing handed it back to me.

On a more serious note, commenting and reporting has definitely had its highs and lows as most things do for all of us in life. How could I ever forget my first TV commentary stint back in November of 2003 when Zimbabwe beat a powerful West Indies side by five wickets in Bulawayo?

And the fact that former Australian off spinner Bruce Yardly, who himself had lost an eye, made history in December 2004 when we commentated together becoming the first two television commentators who commentated with only one eye between the two of us.

The year 2007 will also be a year that will never be forgotten as I was fortunate enough to attend the first edition of the ICC T20 WORLD CUP which was held in South Africa.
Although I had done my schooling in a town by the name of Worcester, which is a hundred or so kilometres out of Cape Town, I never went to the Newlands cricket ground which is probably the most beautiful ground in the world.

So when Zimbabwe took on the mighty Australians at this venue it was the complete answer to a long awaited dream. Not only was I at my beloved Newlands, but I was also watching my country play am international match there.

For once the script had a perfect ending as Zimbabwe recorded a famous 5-wicket win over Australia.
The disappointments of this job, however, are that many producers still question my ability and play it safe by still using me as a guest commentator and although many wonderful stories have been done about me

on television, radio and in magazines, I still haven’t achieved a fraction of what I know I could and would have achieved had I been given a fair chance to prove myself.
It would be very selfish of me not to thank a few people who have gone out of their way to include me where ever they possibly can.

People such as David Haughton, Andy Pycroft, Steve Vickers, who convinced the ZBC crew that I was capable of talking and presenting live on television. Well-known South African, Neil Manthorp, who invited me to join him commenting on the Internet back in 2001, also needs to be mentioned.

I hope that one day when I am to old to hold a microphone or too feeble to analyse, I will be remembered as a dann fine commentator and not as the blind commentator, as the people of Bangladesh called me, when I was there two years ago.

Dean du Plessis, one of the country’s top cricket commentaros, writes exclusively for The Saturday Herald, the newspaper with the biggest sports coverage in Zimbabwe. He can be contacted at [email protected]