Neil Manthorp in Christchurch Cricket
`It couldn’t have happened at a better time in my career. I grew up more in that week than I did in the rest of my life put together. If I hadn’t and I’d been the same person I was before then, I would never have survived, I just wouldn’t have lasted. I’d have been gone – again.”
There have been a few false dawns in Herschelle Gibbs’s career, times when we were led to believe that he had “matured”. The trouble is, if you think about it now, it was other people telling us. Team mates, coaches and administrators all trying to convince themselves – and therefore us – that the investment in Gibbs was about to pay off.
It’s an age thing, simple as that. When Gibbs was called into the national squad before the second Test in Port Elizabeth against the West Indies, the week to which he refers, he had a sudden thought. And it wasn’t a very nice one.
“I was turning 25 in a few months. For the first time it clicked that I wasn’t a youngster any more. All the people that said I was under-achieving, they didn’t bother me because I always believed I was good enough and I always had time to prove it.
“It also didn’t bother me because I was pretty happy with what I was doing. But then, when I was called in for the Test, I could suddenly see what might happen if I screwed up. Suddenly I was thinking 25, then I’m 27 . then maybe someone else comes along and I don’t get another chance – I’d have blown it. You start asking yourself where you’re going, where your career is going.”
The trouble with Gibbs has always been his ability. Too much of it. It’s one thing to know your limitations and to play to them, but what do you “play to” when you don’t have any apparent limitations, when you can play a shot to every ball?
“I’ve spoken to Daryll [Cullinan] quite a bit, because I have similar problems to him, as a batsman. He has taught himself to sacrifice runs in order to build an innings. In a Test match, like during his 275, he would basically block the rest of the over if he took a boundary off the first couple of balls. Of course he’s good enough to hit three or four boundaries, but it doesn’t work like that for a long period of time.
“You have to think of each bowler as having 50 or 100 runs. He wants to keep hold of them, and you want to take them off him. In one-day cricket you have to take them off him quite quickly but in Test cricket you have time. So when he bowls a short one, for example, you have to make the sacrifice to leave it; you have to say, `Ok, you keep those four.’ No bowler can keep his runs for ever. Sooner or later you’ll get the chance to take an easier four off him.”
Gibbs identifies “concentration” as the biggest single difference between provincial and international cricket. For 10 years (yes, it’s been 10 years since he made his first- class debut) he has played with instinctive brilliance. On the rare occasion he played with obduracy and commitment, it was more likely to be because he had something else on his mind, or wasn’t feeling very well. Now he has identified how to play like that when he wants, or needs, to.
“It feels like 10 years have flown by. I don’t have any regrets, but now I really want to make the next 10 years count – if I last that long!” So, Gibbs has decided not to play the hook or pull in Test cricket “no need . too risky”. He has decided to stop “farting around” and to establish himself at international level – and as an opener – too.
“I couldn’t say I was an opener – that would be unfair on guys like Gary [Kirsten], the genuine article. But I’m trying hard to become an opener, to learn. I still think about batting in the middle order, but I’m like the guy trying to give up chocolate, or something, because I know this is good for me. And I want to do it.” But not everything has changed.
Team manager Goolam Rajah, reflecting on the strain that so much time spent away from home causes, said last week: “Over the last 18 months we should have had a full-time sports psychologist, or at least a full-time comedian. Instead, the selectors gave us Herschelle Gibbs. It’s a fair compromise.”
Squad newcomers usually find Gibbs jokes as funny as algebra, in Flemish. But it doesn’t take long before they can translate. Timing, as Charlie Chaplin said, is everything. It is during tense team meetings, for example, that Gibbs is capable of raising the roof – and inevitably lowering the tone – to devastating effect.
Somehow he has perfected the art of offering Bob Woolmer extra food, and teasing Hansie Cronje about just about everything, without the coach and captain taking offence. The rest of the squad, senior players included, can’t believe their ears. That’s why it’s funny.
He has caused some sensitive people to cringe when speaking on the subject of his “colour”, and race in general.
His bottom line is pretty straightforward, though. “Where cricket is concerned, I try not to think about it. I ignore it. If people can’t see I’ve got some talent then they never will. Bob [Woolmer] and Hansie [Cronje] have made it very clear to me and Paul [Adams] that ability is all that matters. That’s good enough for me, and him. I can only be me.
“I can change the way I play, but I don’t want to stop having a laugh. Everyone must be able to have a laugh about life.”