Two cricketers trapped with 3 women in hotel room… The entire team had to suffer the brunt of ‘that night’ before the match.

New Delhi. As shiny and glamorous as the world of cricket appears, the corridors behind it are equally mysterious and sometimes controversial. When the players who hit fours and sixes on the field turn the pages of their personal lives, many such stories come out which surprise the fans. Former South African batsman Herschelle Gibbs has been one such player, who always made headlines with his aggressive batting as well as his outspoken and bold lifestyle.
In his autobiography ‘To the Point’, Gibbs has exposed those ‘untold’ truths of the cricket world, which players generally like to keep behind the scenes.

The most famous story in Herschelle Gibbs’s book is of the 1999 World Cup. The night before an important group match against Australia was very different for Gibbs. He revealed that before the match he had met a girl in the hotel and he spent the whole night with her. According to Gibbs, that girl proved to be a ‘lucky charm’ for him because the next day his bat flourished on the field.

Gibbs had played a brilliant century inning of 101 runs in that match. But destiny had something else in store. The girl who had brought him good luck while batting, perhaps became the reason for his distraction while fielding. In the same match, Gibbs had dropped a very easy catch of Australian captain Steve Waugh. It is said that after dropping the catch, Steve Waugh told Gibbs, ‘Dude, you have just dropped the World Cup.’ And that’s what happened, Australia won that match and ultimately won the World Cup title.

‘Strange’ stories from hotel room
In his book, Gibbs not only mentioned his love life but also the ‘parties’ held in the dressing room and on team tours. He described an incident which created a stir in South African cricket. Gibbs told that once there were two cricketers, two beds and three women present in a hotel room. Gibbs wrote that one of the women remained aloof, but whatever happened between the others was resolved quite ‘smoothly’. Although he did not take the name of any other player directly, his revelation made it clear that on cricket tours, players often went outside the rules of the game to relieve their fatigue.

Controversy related to infamous streets
Herschell Gibbs’s career was not limited to just these colorful stories. He was among those players whose name also came up in the dark era of match fixing. In the year 2000, allegations of match fixing with Hansie Cronje left a deep stain on his career. However, he accepted his mistakes and made a comeback after facing the ban. Gibbs’ book shows that an athlete is ultimately a human being, subject to emotions, temptations and mistakes. While on one hand he became the first batsman in the world to hit 6 sixes in an over, on the other hand the ‘colorfulness’ of his nights always raised questions on his discipline.