South Africa has to win Champions Trophy to get over the fear of failure: Herschelle Gibbs

Former South African cricket team opener Herschelle Gibbs has said that the South African team needs to win the first major ICC trophy after the inaugural edition’s win in 1998 to shed the tag of chokers. In a free-flowing chat, Gibbs, who is a brand ambassador of India Corporate Cricket Bash, threw light on his favourite cricketer, Virat Kohli. Excerpts:

We saw the South African team beat Afghanistan in the Champions Trophy opener. How do you rate the performance?  

They stand as good a chance as anyone to win the tournament. Obviously the game against Australia was rained out that put us on the back foot with regards to the point tally but the game against England is a do-or-die and the winner of that game goes through. That’s the equation and you have to get on with it.

South Africa always founder when it comes to ICC tournaments, how do you explain it?

When I look back at it (and for me) it was always the tournament that got the best out of me. It was not always the case with some of our players…feeling the pressure and that is what it is. It is the fear of failure and I have seen it many times and this is what happened at the Twenty20 World Cup as well. It was the same thing. You need cool heads and it will always be the issue until we end up winning one. And while we have not won a big tournament since 1998, that is all it comes down to. We have the talent and they need calmer heads in pressure situations. We need to find guys from domestic cricket who actually like the pressure and we actually don’t have that with us.

As a former player how did you analyse SA’s performance in the Twenty20 final?

I think because of the IPL Heinrich Klaasen gets talked about quite a lot. His wicket cost us the game. The shot that he played for a guy who was in was surprising. You cannot put that on David Miller because he is the guy who has won us games in the past. The deciding factor was Klaasen’s wicket. I think we needed only 23 or 24 runs or something at that stage and you cannot lose a game from there. For a man who is in, he is the man who should take you home. So I was surprised at the shot he played and that was the deciding factor.

Is the 50-over format battling for survival?

I think it is. I think the bilateral series can be a little more stagnant. I think the tri-series could be the way forward. From the batting perspective the amount of T20 cricket that is played, those skills should be implemented in 50-over cricket too. It will make it more interesting. The guys, who have faced 140 balls, can start playing T20. I think it is for the coaches to send the message out in the middle to implement it and that can make a huge difference.

 How do you rate India’s chances?

At the moment they are playing confident cricket. They are firm favourites but New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, England can all win it and that is what makes it very nice to see. It was nice to see Virat (Kohli) score runs. He is my favourite player. India are definitely the favourites.

There is a lot of talk about how India has the advantage over other teams as they play all their matches in Dubai. Your thoughts on that.

I have seen those comments but it is what it is. The less said about that the better. Everybody knows that they will be playing in Dubai, just accept it and play. Just get on with it.