Diary
Looking forward to spell at Glamorgan
By Herschelle Gibbs
Apr 21, 2008, 21:52

I’m a little bit disappointed with what happened in the Cobras semi-final of the Standard Bank Pro20. We really wanted to win that. But the focus is now all on the IPL.

I’ll be arriving in India at 4.30am on Wednesday morning – flying with Graeme (Smith) – and our franchises meet Thursday night in Hyderabad. I don’t know if I will be playing after arriving so close to the match but I know Graeme’s team are keen to have him in.

I am really looking forward to playing the IPL for Hyderabad and opening with Mr. Gilchrist - hopefully the majority of the wickets will be as good as those we saw on the first couple of days when McCullum and Hussey scored hundreds.

I probably missed the right game at Kolkata where the wicket wasn’t great. I hear that Andrew Symonds was slating it. It was a shame because the atmosphere was great but as batsmen there’s not much you can do when you get on a wicket like that.

Now that that game is out of the way we can look at getting a few wins under our belts. There probably aren’t many more destructive batting line-ups in the IPL as ours with Gilchrist, Symonds, Afridi, Laxman and myself so if we can play on good pitches we should see some high scores.

When you have quality hitters up front like we have the bowlers will be put under some serious pressure so it will be interesting to see how they bowl to us. Bowlers know they have to do something different to survive and I have noticed most at the moment have tried to just keep to an off stump line and cramp batsmen for room so you don’t have the room to swing your arms. 

It will be up to us batsmen to improvise if we do come up against some clever bowling. This is what makes Twenty20 such a fascinating format. As international players we don’t get to play too much Twenty20, maybe the odd game here and there, but having been left at home by South Africa for the last month or two I have been able to have a closer look at the shorter game and see what it’s all about.

As a batsman you can get carried away and it’s easy to forget about the basics, but I have realised that a lot of the basics still apply. But again the pitch makes a big difference. If the surface is true you can just hit through the line of the ball and even if the bowler is straight with his line you can hit him down the ground or over his head.

The IPL will prepare me nicely for my few weeks at Glamorgan where I will play some more Twenty20 in June. I have always enjoyed the UK and have generally played well there. The weather will make a difference. If it’s wet or overcast batting conditions can be quite sporty, but if the sun shines pitches can be fairly flat.

I’ve only played at Cardiff once before and I hit 93 not out against Zimbabwe in 2003, so I suppose if it goes like that again this time I’ll be ok. There is a bit more responsibility on me as the overseas pro’ but I see that as an exciting challenge.   

I have always been keen to play some county cricket. I signed for Durham once but wasn’t able to play so at least I’m now getting my opportunity.

I have been told by my lawyer it’s likely that I won’t have to go to court now for my drink-driving offence so I should be able to stay in the UK for all of the Twenty20 campaign. I very much regret what happened there, it was a mistake that I will definitely learn from and I don’t intend on it happening again.