“Personally, I would think Colin Bland was the best and Andy Flower next. “It’s very kind of him to rate me so highly,” said Houghton. This makes him a very capable summariser of the game.”īeing endorsed as the best by du Plessis draws a typically modest reaction from Houghton. “I’ve always known he had a great passion for the game and despite never being able to see, he has an incredible knowledge and understanding of the game. I first met him with his father while watching his brother play cricket,” Houghton told Al Jazeera. ![]() Houghton, too, has high respect for du Plessis. But Davie entertained me, and he was very kind to me.” “I would personally not have been happy with a schoolboy continuously calling me to talk a whole bunch of nonsense. “We started to form a bond when I used to call him from our hostel call-box in South Africa and pester him,” chuckled du Plessis. Houghton, who was recently appointed Zimbabwe’s coaching manager, has also been a very supportive figure in du Plessis’s career. We both agreed that Dave Houghton is the best player to have represented Zimbabwe.” “My dad was my biggest supporter and number one fan. The loss of his father, and his hearing problems, have proved a major setback for du Plessis. However, Gary died in a 2006 car crash and Chris passed away in 2020. His older brother Gary, a club cricketer in Zimbabwe, and father Chris – a big cricket fan – were his earliest cricketing influences. If I can recover from two tumours that I was born with, which caused my blindness, surely I can find that amount from somewhere.” ‘Number one fan’ These cost $4,000 which is a lot of money. I want to get these hearing aids but they are not the normal, everyday aids. “I sometimes go into complete panic mode. “It’s very worrying, to be honest,” said du Plessis. However, that extraordinary hearing ability – du Plessis’s biggest asset – is now fading, he said as he marked his 20th year covering the game. Video: Meet Dean du Plessis, world’s first and only visually impaired cricket commentator | /JpNzLwvbi8 He was initially drawn to broadcasting while at a boarding school for the blind in Worcester, just outside Cape Town in South Africa, and he idolised several radio commentators who covered domestic cricket in the country at that time. You can hear the batsman’s voice and you know who they are, just by the way they call between the wickets whether they say no or wait’.”ĭu Plessis was born in Harare and enjoyed a comfortable upbringing, spending the early years of his childhood in his hometown of Kadoma, a small municipality 142km (88 miles) outside of the capital. You listen to the grunts when they release the ball. ![]() “When you listen to the stump mic, you hear the bowler as he gets to the crease and bowls. “The stumps microphones are my bread and butter,” du Plessis told Al Jazeera. Harare, Zimbabwe – Dean du Plessis was born blind.įorty-four years on, du Plessis says he is the world’s only blind cricket commentator and journalist and does not get tired of explaining how he is Zimbabwe’s most recognised voice in cricket.
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