The World is unpredictable as in moments a person who is declared dead can be termed alive! The same happened with Zimababwe’s legendary cricketer Heath Streak. Early in the morning, it was reported that former Zimbabwe Skipper Heath Streak had succumbed to cancer. Following the news, his teammate, Henry Olonga too posted a tweet remembering Streak’s Playing days in Zimbabwe Cricket. The news spread like fire on social media & several other cricketers such as Yuvraj Singh, and R Ashwin also poured tributes for the former Zimbabwe Cricketer. However, soon a shocker came as Heath Streak death news turned out to be fake & the legendary cricketer is still alive!
Henry Olonga confirmed the news of Streak being alive by sharing a Screenshot of his conversation with Streak on X (Twitter). He deleted his previous tribute tweet & informed his followers that he just had a conversation with Streak & he is alive!
“I can confirm that rumors of the demise of Heath Streak have been greatly exaggerated. I just heard from him. The third umpire has called him back. He is very much alive folks,”
wrote Olonga on X.
Heath Streak too confirmed that he, “is very much alive”
Even Heath Streak had a conversation with a leading publication where he confirmed that some source had spread fake news of his death. Streak is deeply hurt by the fake news of his death & wants an apology from the source from where he started. He also said that he is very upset to learn that in today’s era of social media & digitalization, the news of someone’s passing away can spread without being verified. Heath’s demand for an apology is not wrong as he has been battling liver cancer for a long time now & news of death could have caused him trauma.
A Glimpse of Heath Streak Cricketing Career
The former Zimbabwe Captain has represented the nation in 65 tests & 189 ODIs. He continues to be Zimbabwe’s leading wicket-taker in both Tests & ODis. In Tests, he finished with 216 wickets while in ODIs, he picked up 239 wickets. With bat too Streak made heads turned around by scoring 1990 Test runs and 2943 ODI runs respectively.
He has achieved the landmark of being the first Zimbabwean Cricketer to reach the 100 wickets mark in both Tests & ODis. Also, he continues to be the one Zimbabwean player to accomplish the feat of 100 Test wickets & ODI wickets. Heath Streak has been the sole representative of Zimbabwe to score 2000 runs & scalp 200 wickets in ODIs.
After retiring from International Cricket Streak has ventured into coaching roles with Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Kolkata Knight Riders, and Gujarat Lions. However, in August 2021, ICC banned him from Cricket for a period of eight years due to a violation of ICC’s anti-corruption Code. Though he admitted five charges he didn’t accept match-fixing charges.
Several cricketers have been a victim of fake news
For the unversed, renowned cricketers such as Adam Gilchrist & Anil Kumble have been a victim of fake news. Earlier in the morning even Gilchrist took to X (Twitter) to mourn the news of Heath Streak’s death. However, later he posted that he was happy to learn that Heath Streak is alive. Gilchrist tweeted, “Having read many news reports about Heath Streak, I’m so happy to learn the news was incorrect.”
We wish Heath Streak many more years of health & success!
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