Gibbs starts to tame the wild talent

Free spirit of South African batting wants to leave bad times in the past. Stephen Brenkley speaks to him

Many of the outstanding cricketers strutting their stuff in one city these past 10 days are deep thinkers about the game. Doubtless, so are some of the ordinary ones who have also been on display. They analyse and dissect, research and examine. You can see it in their faces as they pass in the hotel lobby: they are wondering if Sachin might be suspect to late reverse swing or whether it is worth charging Shane's flipper.

Herschelle Gibbs is not among this breed. By his own admission he is a straightforward man. In cricket, in life. Deep thought to Gibbs involves deciding whether to have a glass of wine or a jug of beer. He is a free spirit and he is instinctive, unfazed about his involvement in three of cricket's most notorious recent incidents. His philosophy is: It's happened, there's nothing I can do about it, now let's get on with the rest of my life. He is engagingly candid.

On Friday night in the Champions' Trophy, the South African opening batsman scored his eighth one-day century. He awaits England in the semi-finals if they overcome India today. He has a Test average higher than 40, a kind of benchmark of ability, and in his most recent match, against Australia in March, he scored 104.

The evidence mounts that Gibbs, a poor boy from Cape Town, is fit to bear comparison with the very best. If only he could hone his concentration, ditch the shoddy shot selection. He has the hallmark of all good players, an uncomplicated method, in his case accompanied by an uncluttered mind. If he knows it, he will reflect on it.

"I didn't pass exams at school," he said. "I used to look out of the window dreaming of sport." He was a skilful teenage footballer with a tinge of regret still that no foreign coach came calling to Cape Town, and he has just spent most of four months getting his golf handicap down to three. He wonders aloud if perhaps he ought to have spent more time with his girlfriend of a year.

"I'm 28 now but I still feel 22. I don't think much about life, I do things on the spur of the moment," he said. "I have stayed pretty much the same person. But I am now trying to do everything in moderation. I haven't changed but I think I would like to be a bit more mature."

Apart from a few scintillating innings, Gibbs' reputation has been built on three things. First, his dropping of Steve Waugh in the 1999 World Cup when Australia were on the verge of elimination. Waugh went on to make a century, Australia to win the competition.

Secondly, his involvement with several other South African players in smoking dope to celebrate a Test series win in the West Indies. The escapade became public.

Thirdly, and most notoriously, his entanglement in the Cronje Affair on match-rigging, which led to a brief ban from cricket. He is not fazed by any of this, he is quite prepared to address the issues, if not to analyse them, and he has signed a deal to write a book (or at least have it written for him) which will not shy away from the truth.

Gibbs was persuaded by Cronje to get out for less than 20 in a now notorious one-day match against India in Nagpur. When he was 18 Anil Kumble narrowly missed a caught and bowled opportunity, though Gibbs claims he offered it quite inadvertently. He then decided the plan was not going to work and made 74.

Had he fulfilled his part of the bargain, money might have changed hands, he might have been banned for life if he had been exposed and he knows it. But it has not affected him. He wanted the money, he said, for his mum. "I didn't think about it. I would now."

Nor did he think about the cannabis incident. Nearly all the South Africans decided that they would mark their series win by "smoking the biggest spliff you've ever seen." A few of them whose wives were in town pulled out. "I didn't think. Then it came out." He conceded that he still occasionally reflects on the Waugh catch. He would have taken it all right but before he had proper control of it he threw it away.

Gibbs denied that Waugh uttered the comment that has gone into legend: "You just dropped the World Cup." But he does not try to deny that it would have been spot on.

Gibbs and South Africa still miss Cronje. The former captain's shadow still hangs over the team, perhaps more since he died in a plane crash earlier this year.

"When we went to play in the Morocco Cup, the first match since Hansie died, we were determined to win it for him. People forget that we won 80 per cent of our one-day matches under him."

They have not been as effective since Cronje was banned and they were savaged by Australia in two Test series last winter. "I think we got our tactics badly wrong, trying to fight fire with fire," said Gibbs.

"We talked about it as a group. We've got to start respecting each other again." There is an engaging candour about him. His mates, he said, know that there is quite another side to a persona that might be seen as "arrogant and cocky."

And can South Africa win the Champions' Trophy and the World Cup in their own country next spring? He hesitated. "I'd say yes, but we have to get good starts with the bat." He sounded as if he had definitely thought about it.