• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

Gibbs considers Retirement!!!!!!!

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
20 ODI hundreds (the 5th best of all time), strike rate over 80 with an average over 35, that is superb.
SR over 83, average of 36.5, looks good at first-glance, doesn't it? Apart from the fact it's bumped-up quite a bit by substandard sides (against whom he's scored 1307 runs in 30 innings with 5 n\o striking at 100) a great many of Gibbs' biggest knocks, at least outside 1999/2000 and 2000/01, were scored against bowling which ranged from poor to woeful. Of course, you've still got to put it away and he was excellent at doing that, but Gibbs has always been a fair flat-track bully.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Is that a serious question?
Yes. He's never really struck me as such at all - he's done dumb things, of course, but he speaks well, and his team-mates have talked of his always being sharp off-the-mark when there's moneymaking to be done. Which have tended to give me the impression he's smart enough, though obviously not an Einstein.
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
Yes. He's never really struck me as such at all - he's done dumb things, of course, but he speaks well, and his team-mates have talked of his always being sharp off-the-mark when there's moneymaking to be done. Which have tended to give me the impression he's smart enough, though obviously not an Einstein.
In fairness to the guy, he is charming, funny and charismatic, but he is not not 'the shiniest new ball in the box'.

It hasnt hurt him and he knows the score. There are lots of Gough 'being dumb' stories from everyday people, let alone teammates.

My own favourite was many years go.

Me "Hey Darren. Hartley (Peter Hartley) was bowling quick today. Is he bowling quicker that you at the moment?"

Gough "Do bears **** in the woods?"

Me "Yes. Yes they do?"

Gough "Really? Ok. No then. Im bowling quicker than Hartley" :blink:
 
Last edited:

gettingbetter

State Vice-Captain
SR over 83, average of 36.5, looks good at first-glance, doesn't it? Apart from the fact it's bumped-up quite a bit by substandard sides (against whom he's scored 1307 runs in 30 innings with 5 n\o striking at 100) a great many of Gibbs' biggest knocks, at least outside 1999/2000 and 2000/01, were scored against bowling which ranged from poor to woeful. Of course, you've still got to put it away and he was excellent at doing that, but Gibbs has always been a fair flat-track bully.
You'd think that there is enough ODI cricket to make something like that negligible?
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
There's certainly enough ODI cricket - a bit too much, in fact. Gibbs has been poor quite often against stronger ODI attacks.

I'd not remotely hesitate to pick Nick Knight ahead of him, and the Fierys of this World would probably not understand that either.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
In fairness to the guy, he is charming, funny and charismatic, but he is not not 'the shiniest new ball in the box'.

It hasnt hurt him and he knows the score. There are lots of Gough 'being dumb' stories from everyday people, let alone teammates.

My own favourite was many years go.

Me "Hey Darren. Hartley (Peter Hartley) was bowling quick today. Is he bowling quicker that you at the moment?"

Gough "Do bears **** in the woods?"

Me "Yes. Yes they do?"

Gough "Really? Ok. No then. Im bowling quicker than Hartley" :blink:
:laugh: That's pretty good. Must've been quite a while ago if Peter Hartley was playing for Yorks, never mind bowling quickly.

Never even knew he was all that quick ITFP actually.
 

gettingbetter

State Vice-Captain
Fair enough. I find it hard to believe that you say Kallis is better than Smith and Klusener. But I leave that for later.

But Gibbs, I think you aren't giving a fair go. He has been consistently good for SA for a numbers of years. My main gripe is that he has scored 100s against reasonable teams, but with the general set up of ODIs, he inevitably has scored against weak teams too. Just depends on who you call class and not, because he has scored a few against the Windies.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Come on then - give me a few Gibbs innings from 2001/02 onwards that came against high-calibre bowlers who were bowling well.

Of course there'll be 1 or 2 here and there, because he's certainly not completely hopeless, and yes of course he's been a fine servant to SA because you can only play what's put in front of you and Gibbs smashed poor bowling better than most. And SA faced a good few weak attacks in his career and he often put them away.

But I don't think Gibbs would have been an especially good ODI batsman at a time of generally stronger attacks. He'd have averaged 30-32, at best, and as a result might very well not have had a career of anything like the length he has.
 

gettingbetter

State Vice-Captain
His ton in SA against England, 4th ODI I believe, he also scored another one there I think. Obviously his 170 odd in the 434 match. Ton against India in the CT was rather good too. Obviously, and we are both in aggreance here, he has dismantled rubbish attacks, but with the way ODIs are composed it is inevtiable and we could place an asteriks against every single ODI batsmen since 1999.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Century against us in 2004/05 I'll give you, it was the Sixth ODI, and it was a very tricky pitch. The 175 (admittedly he was dropped on 130-odd but it'd still have been a superlative knock if Bracken had caught that) obviously, but I don't feel that Champions Trophy innings was all that good at all. India's only decent bowler in that game was Harbhajan Singh.

That's particularly good 2 knocks in 6 years. From someone who some are claiming to be one of the best ODI players in the last 2 decades, you need a bit more than that.

I certainly don't feel there's a need to place asterisks against every ODI batsman since 1999 (it'd be a bit more recent than that too) though - you can still tell a flat-track bully from one who can conquer all conditions.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Ah, I see - I was merely meaning since the ODI became what it can now be recognised as, which I generally trace back to 1990 (a decade being as good a place as any to draw the line), though you could also say 1992 (a World Cup year thus).

I don't see any point in suggesting that games from 1985 and 1998 were comparable, because so much had changed they just weren't the same thing IMO.
 

Top