Suspending Gibbs will serve no purpose

June 6, 2001 by neil manthorp

Neil Man­thorp — 06/06/2001

On Thurs­day June 7, at 4:30 p.m. Her­schelle Gibbs will face yet anoth­er UCB Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee with the prospect of becom­ing the first crick­eter in his­to­ry to be sus­pend­ed twice.

The Com­mit­tee will not lay charges. They will not cross-exam­ine nor will they argue, they will sim­ply sit in judge­ment and lis­ten to the rea­sons that Gibb­s’s legal coun­sel give as to why he should not be banned for anoth­er three matches.

The onus is on Gibbs and his rep­re­sen­ta­tives to prove to the com­mit­tee why he should­n’t be banned.

As far as the Unit­ed Crick­et Board and the DC com­mit­tee are con­cerned, the sus­pend­ed sen­tence is hang­ing like a guil­lo­tine and Gibbs cut the rope when he trans­gressed in Antigua.

There appears to be less sup­port amongst the pub­lic than there ever was before, too, so things are not look­ing too good for Her­schelle. Or are they?

Before we with­draw our sup­port for the play­er and the DC decide whether or not to invoke Gibbs’ ban, I believe we should ask our­selves a cou­ple of impor­tant questions.

What good will ban­ning him do? What pur­pose will it serve? There is chance that a sec­ond ban­ning, with the sub­se­quent world­wide head­lines, could destroy Gibbs. Or at the least, set him back anoth­er year or two.

So, most impor­tant­ly, we should ask our­selves: Would the pun­ish­ment (sus­pen­sion) fit the crime?

What­ev­er your views are about mar­i­jua­na, can we hon­est­ly say that tak­ing a puff of a joint ( with FIVE oth­er team mates) in the pri­va­cy of a hotel room is wor­thy of the recrim­i­na­to­ry effects that a sus­pen­sion that would bring?

I’m not say­ing ‘treat him light­ly’, cer­tain­ly not. Give him 100 hours of com­mu­ni­ty coach­ing to do, and make him teach school­child­ren. But for good­ness sake, don’t ban him.

The one place you can guar­an­tee that Her­schelle Gibbs won’t get into trou­ble is on the crick­et field. Keep him on it for as long as possible.

And by the way, his behav­iour and con­duct on the 12 week tour of the Caribbean was exem­plary. Apart from the night the Test series was won. Make the pun­ish­ment fit the crime.