/ 4 June 2009

Gibbs back to his best

Herschelle Gibbs’s regained consistency coupled with his abundant natural talent have given the Proteas’ Pro20 squad a huge boost ahead of the Twenty20 World Cup in England.

The tournament officially starts at Lord’s on Friday when hosts England play the Netherlands with the Proteas playing their opening match in Group B against Scotland at The Oval on Sunday.

So far everything is on target with the Proteas following their destruction of Pakistan on Monday and beating Sri Lanka by seven wickets at Lord’s on Wednesday with five balls to spare.

And the most significant event has been the consistency of Gibbs at No. 3. He followed his 42 against Pakistan with 48 of 53 balls against Sri Lanka to lay the foundation for victory after both Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis had been dismissed with only seven runs on the board.

Gibbs and De Villiers then added 70 for the third wicket to break the back of the modest target of 110. Both impressed with their maturity as they struggled to find their timing.

It would have been easy for either of them to give it away attempting a big shot but they kept their cool and finished off the job that had started with Dale Steyn and his fellow bowlers reducing Sri Lanka to 44-7.

The death bowling was not as good as it should have been and it is the one area that will require work in the final warm-up match against Ireland at Southfield on Thursday.

But back to Gibbs. He averaged 50 in the home ODI series against Australia and has confirmed that he has regained his consistency of old with more than 300 runs scored in his last seven limited-overs innings for the Proteas.

Gibbs felt that the two warm-up matches had provided the ideal opportunity for the Proteas to adapt after playing the last five weeks in the IPL on the very different South African surfaces.

”It was a different type of surface from the one we had at Trent Bridge and there were one or two Sri Lankan bowlers that we hadn’t seen before,” commented Gibbs. ”You also can’t come straight from five weeks on the wickets in South Africa to think you are going to time it perfectly here.

”That is obviously what a warm-up game is all about and that is what we used this game for. The pitch was a little bit slow and held up back of a length and, when there isn’t much pace to work with, you have to generate your own pace.

”I have been a little bit surprised at the slowness of the pitches bearing in mind the excellent summer weather we have had the last few days.”

What won’t surprise anybody is that a Gibbs getting back to his best in every aspect is just what the Proteas would have ordered.– Sapa