Fake News of EX-Zimbabwe Captain Heath Streak’s Death Goes Viral. Read the Fact-Check
Megha Bajaj 
A news is going viral on the Internet claiming that Former Zimbabwe cricketer has passed away at the age of 49 after a prolonged battle with Cancer. Social media users are fiercely sharing this news. Subsequently, the news has drawn condolences from significant cricketers of the Cricket fraternity.
Streak is considered as one of the greatest cricketers of Zimbabwe. He remains the only cricketer of Zimbabwe to take 100 Test wickets and represented Zimbabwe in 65 matches and 189 ODIs before his retirement.
Sports News Website Fox Cricket shared this news on Twitter with the caption : “Former Zimbabwe captain Heath Streak has passed away aged 49”
Furthermore, News Agency Reuters also published this news mentioning: “Former Zimbabwe captain Heath Streak, who had been undergoing treatment for cancer, has died at the age of 49, his former team mate Henry Olonga said late on Tuesday”.
Not only this, but several news websites including Amar ujala, Outlookindia and abplive also published news with similar claims.
Fact-Check
To investigate the claim of the above viral news, the DFRAC team searched some keywords related to the viral news on Google and found that most of the news websites removed their published news articles claiming death of Heath Streak.
In addition to that, we discovered a tweet by Heath’s Former Bowling Partner turned Singer Henry Olongy. He shared a screenshot of whatsapp chat in this tweet and dismissed the rumors of Heath’s demise.
Following this, we also found a news article published by Hindustantimes with the Headline : “Heath Streak ‘very much’ alive, rumours of his death are fake: Henry Olonga shares WhatsApp chat with Zimbabwe great. In this news article, Hindustan times mentioned: “Heath Streak, the former Zimbabwe cricketer, is alive. Hours after Streak’s former teammate Henry Olonga posted about his ex-captain’s demise, the pace bowler-turned-singer shared another message confirming otherwise. Olonga shared a screenshot of his WhatsApp conversation with what appears to be with Streak, who wrote that he is ‘very much alive’ and requested Henry to take down his previous update”.
Moreover, Indianexpress and WION also published this news making similar claims.
Conclusion
Dfrac’s fact-check proves that the news of Captain Heath Streak’s demise is completely fake. The Former Zimbabwe cricketer is alive and well.
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