Interesting Facts About Heath Streak

Heath Streak is the most prolific all-rounder Zimbabwe has ever produced. His smooth long run-up enabled him to generate swing with a decent pace and willow in his hand, he played some knocks to remember down the order. The right-hand cricketer performed in an era when the game used to be much more competitive and aggressive. His glorious career saw him playing for 12 years and creating an abundance of memories throughout. Let’s learn some interesting facts about Heath Streak.

Facts About Heath Streak 

1. Heath Streak was born on the 18th of March in 1974 in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. His father Denis Streak also played some first-class cricket. 

2. Streak represented Matabeleland in first-class cricket from 1993 to 2004. In the 1996 Logan Cup final, Heath played along with his 46-year-old dad Denis for Matabeleland against Mashonaland and won the match. This was the first time a father-son duo played in the same first-class match in more than thirty years. 

3. The 49-year-old cricketer made his first appearance in international cricket in an ODI against South Africa. In 189 outings in the One Day format, he picked up 239 wickets while amassing 2942 runs including 13 fifties. 

4. Just one month after his ODI debut, Heath played his maiden test against Pakistan and in the very 2nd match, he stunned the whole world with 8 scalps in Rawalpindi. Overall, the veteran bagged 22 wickets in the series, the most by any Zimbabwe bowler in a test series. 

5. In the Zimbabwe tour of New Zealand in 1996, he became the quickest Zimbabwe bowler to get 50 test wickets in just 11 games. The record is still intact. 

6. The Bulawayo-born also holds the record of being the only bowler in the country to take 200+ ODI wickets, achieving the feat in 2003 against England. 

7. Being an impactful bowler, Streak claimed 216 wickets in 65 test matches but his best of 6/73 came against India in Harare in 2005. 

8. The legendary figure has a test century in his name which emerged against the visiting West Indies team batting at no.9, amassing an unbeaten 127* off 264 balls against a strong bowling lineup made of Fidel Edwards, Colly Collymore, and Jerome Taylor. 

9. He made his mark in the county cricket too. First, he played for Hampshire in 1995 and then offered his services to Warwickshire from 2004 to 2007, 

10. Heath bid adieu to international cricket in 2005. 

11. The former Zimbabwe captain was a part of the Ahmedabad Rockets in the abandoned Indian Cricket League in 2007.

12. After retiring from international cricket, he could not stay away from cricket for a long time. He coached Zimbabwe and Bangladesh among national teams. Moreover, served as a bowling coach for Gujarat Lions for 2 years (2016-2017) and KKR for a year (2018). 

13. ICC banned Streak for 8 years in 2021 from any cricketing activity for disclosing some inside pieces of information about IPL, PSL, and APL to a corruptor in 2017. He received 2 bitcoins and an iPhone as payment for this job. 

14. Streak has been suffering from deadly cancer for a while now. Amid his illness, on the 23rd of August 2023, the rumor of his death spread like a fire. But later he revealed via some news authorities that he is alive and hurt by this fake news. Actually, his teammate, Henry Olonga created confusion on Twitter (now X) when he posted- “Sad news coming through that Heath Streak has crossed to the other side… See you on the other side when my bowling spell comes to an end”. 

15. Heath Streak’s estimated net worth is $5 million. 

16. His jersey number was 9.