Henry Olonga
Zimbabwean cricketer
Henry Khaaba Olonga (born 3 July 1976) is a Zimbabwean former cricketer who played Test and One Day International cricket for Zimbabwe. In domestic first-class cricket in Zimbabwe, Olonga played for Matabeleland, Mashonaland and Manicaland. When he made his Test debut in January 1995, he was the first black cricketer and the youngest person to play for Zimbabwe. He was a regular member of the Zimbabwe team from 1996 to 2003, playing in the World Cup in 1996, 1999 and 2003. During his playing days, he formed a rivalry against former Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar whenever Zimbabwe and India played against each other in international cricket.
He was considered one of the fastest bowlers in international cricket, but also one of the more inaccurate, bowling many wides and no-balls. His international career came to an end in 2003 after Olonga and teammate Andy Flower wore black armbands during an international cricket match in the 2003 Cricket World Cup to "mourn the death of democracy" in Zimbabwe. Death threats forced him to live in exile in England. Olonga announced his retirement from international cricket after Zimbabwe's final game in the 2003 World Cup at the age of 26 when he was at the prime of his career. Olonga and Flower were given honorary life membership of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) later in 2003.
“Henry Olonga” enters the record as zimbabwean cricketer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Henry, Olonga and Zimbabwean can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3132992. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1976, 1995, 1996 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Henry Olonga” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.