Herschelle Gibbs

Herschelle Herman Gibbs (born 23 February 1974) is a South African cricket coach and former cricketer, who played all formats of the game for fourteen years.

Gibbs also played alongside Springboks star Percy Montgomery for Western Province in Craven Week 1992.

It was the highest ever score made in an ODI against Australia, beating Robin Smith's effort in 1993.

By bringing up his hundred off just 79 balls, he also brought up what was at the time the fastest ever ODI century against Australia.

More importantly however, it was the fastest ever hundred by a South African batsman against any opposition, although the record would be broken later in the year by Mark Boucher.

It was also the highest ever score by a batsman in South Africa.

He scored 126 runs in boundaries, the most ever by a batsman.

Gibbs fathered a son with partner Liesl Fuller in 1996.

His first was an innings of 211 not out against New Zealand at Jade Stadium in 1999.

His innings took 468 balls while his second double century, 228 against Pakistan came off just 240 balls.

In that innings in Newlands, he reached a national record partnership of 368 with Graeme Smith.

He has put on a further two 300-run opening stands with his captain, making them the only pair in Test history to break 300 on three occasions.

He also holds the South African second wicket record, a partnership of 315* with Jacques Kallis.

Gibbs famously dropped a catch in a World Cup game against Australia in 1999, when he attempted to throw the ball up into the air in celebration before he had full control of it.

The player that he dropped, Steve Waugh, went on to make a century and win the game for Australia, a victory which also gave the Australian side the momentum they required to go on and win the tournament.

It was claimed at the time that, immediately after the dropped catch, Waugh had "sledged" Gibbs with the statement, "You've just dropped the World Cup", but, in his autobiography Out of My Comfort Zone, Waugh denies this.

Waugh did state, however, that teammate Shane Warne had noticed that Gibbs had developed a habit of throwing the ball in the air prematurely after taking catches and instructed his colleagues not to leave the crease too quickly if they happened to be caught by Gibbs, just in case the situation that happened to Waugh should actually occur.

Gibbs is one of only ten batsmen in ODI history to score hundreds in three consecutive innings, the others being Zaheer Abbas, Saeed Anwar, AB de Villiers, Quinton de Kock, Ross Taylor, Kumar Sangakkara, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Babar Azam.

On 6 October 2002, in Potchefstroom, in a match against Bangladeshis, Gibbs had a chance to become the first ever batsman to score four hundreds in a row.

South Africa was set the target of 155 for victory, and Gibbs fell just three runs short, finishing unbeaten on 97.

With just six runs needed for victory, he had the strike on 96, but Alok Kapali bowled a legside wide that went for four and made his task almost impossible.

Regarded as one of the most naturally talented cricketers South Africa have ever produced, Gibbs was also known as an excellent fielder, like his compatriot Jonty Rhodes, with former Australian captain Ricky Ponting noting that in his opinion Gibbs is better than Rhodes in his ability to hit the stumps, with a report prepared by ESPNcricinfo in late 2005 showing that since the 1999 Cricket World Cup, he had effected the eighth highest number of run-outs in ODI cricket of any fieldsman, with the tenth highest success rate.

Gibbs was schooled at St Joseph's Marist College and then Diocesan College in Rondebosch.

Gibbs was a gifted sportsman at school featuring in SA Schools teams for rugby, cricket and soccer.

At Diocesan College Gibbs played for their First Rugby XV in the same team alongside Robbie Fleck, Selborne Boome and Dave von Hoesslin who would all go on to become Springboks.

On 12 March 2006, Gibbs played a monumental innings in the 5th ODI against Australia, scoring 175 off just 111 balls leading South Africa to victory.

He was batting with Graeme Smith after Boeta Dippenaar was out on 1(3) bowled by Nathan Bracken.

This was the highest scoring One Day International match in history and his innings broke several batting records.

A right-handed batsman,who mostly opened the batting, Gibbs became the first player to hit six consecutive sixes in one over in One Day International (ODI) cricket, doing so against the Netherlands in the 2007 Cricket World Cup.

In June 2007, Gibbs married Tenielle Povey in St Kitts, but divorced soon afterwards.

In the match against the Netherlands in the group stage of the 2007 Cricket World Cup, Gibbs hit six sixes in an over off the bowling of Daan van Bunge becoming the first player in One Day International history to do so.

Ravi Shastri and Sir Garfield Sobers had previously achieved this feat in first-class cricket but to date no player has achieved this in Test Cricket.

In doing so, he raised US$1 million for the Habitat for Humanity housing projects as part of a contest run by tournament sponsor Johnnie Walker.

It is likely that his being awarded citizenship of St Kitts and Nevis was due to this feat.

His six hitting form continued throughout the tournament and when he hit Jacob Oram into the stands during a Super Eight match he drew level with Australian batsman Ricky Ponting on 28 for most sixes in World Cup history.

This record stood until 11 April 2011, when Shane Watson hit 150 runs in boundaries against Bangladesh.

Sangakkara became the only player to hit four consecutive ODI hundreds, during 2015 cricket world cup.

In 2019, a court ordered him to pay 4500 Rands per month for child care of a baby belonging to him and a woman with whom he had an affair.

He engaged with Dana Németh in June 2023.

Gibbs has scored two double centuries in his Test career, both contrasting innings.