The Sunday Mail
It’s a cliché that ‘behind every successful man there is a woman’, but in most cases it’s true.
Chamu Chibhabha concurs.
The Zimbabwe cricket team opener tells that his success-woman is his wife, Natsai Dovi, who used to drop him off along Airport Road so that he would jog back home all in a bid to pass a fitness test.
Chibhabha, who celebrated his 32nd birthday last Thursday opened up to The Sunday Mail last week that having a family is the best thing to have happened to him.
The right-handed opener is Zimbabwe’s 15th most capped ODI player with 103 caps and has been an international cricketer for 13 years. “I am not much of a guy who celebrates birthdays…but I am just grateful for another year, more life more blessings,” he said.
“I am all about my family and my cricket,” said Chibhabha, a father of two kids. “I am grateful of the people I have in my life, my wife is so supportive.
“There was a time when my fitness dropped so I had to work my way up and I had the help from my wife, I used to ask her to drop me off along the Airport Road and I would run back home.
“I also had the support of my cousin Lavert Masunda who used to help me because he is a really fit guy,” said Chibhabha. He is part of the squad set to tour South Africa for three ODIs and three T20Is from September 30-14 October.
Chibhabha recalls his first tour of South Africa in September 2006 where he scored 37, 38 and 46 in three ODIs,
“It shows how time flies, I am very privileged to have played this long I still have a few more years in me, I am going to try and enjoy as much as I can,” he said.
“In every series that you play if you get an opportunity to score runs you want to maximize on that and I guess it was one of those tours”, says the opener who averages 31.37 against the Proteas.
“The most important thing in life is to keep evolving and learning from your mistakes…It’s the same thing with being a parent, you get out of your comfort zone.”
He continued:
“In cricket as you grow and start playing with younger players, you need to take responsibility, same thing at home as a husband or a father. “I feel these are the challenges that build you to be a better person and ever since I got married, ever since I had my first born and my second kid those have been the best years of my life.
“I never thought I would say this, but it changed me, getting married and having kids changed me and I have achieved so much. Chibhabha’s wife Natsai revealed that Chamu wasn’t a keen runner, so she had to push him.
“I really wanted him to pass that fitness test so I would drop him at Arlington Shops and he would run back home, driving it would take me seven to ten minutes on that distance,” she said.
Natsai revealed more about her partner.
“He is a loving husband and father, he helps out at home, with the school run and also being with the kids.
“He also loves his dog and now he runs with it, so the running part is covered and he loves his food, he is a big eater,”” she said with a laugh.
