JP Duminy, speaking on The Super Over Podcast, recalled the time Herschelle Gibbs accepted his father’s invitation to attend his 15th birthday.
Duminy, who retired from all forms of international cricket after the World Cup last year, revealed how Gibbs, who would go on to finish the 1999 World Cup as South Africa’s top-scorer months later, accepted his father’s invitation at once and surprised him with a national team shirt.
The former Proteas opening batsman even attended a school function as the then-15-year-old Duminy’s guest, where his father claimed that the duo would play together soon. As it turned out, Duminy made his ODI debut for South Africa as a 20-year-old in 2004, with Gibbs a part of the playing XI.
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“He [Gibbs] was my hero growing up,” Duminy said. “I was very fortunate – I had my 15th birthday, so I was still a junior. And my dad had met him outside a restaurant sometime just before my birthday, and my dad just approached and asked him, ‘Listen, it’s JP’s birthday, would you be interested in maybe coming to surprise him at our house?’ And I don’t know what made him say yes. So yeah, he actually rocked up at my dad’s house on the night of my birthday.
“There was a knock on the door, and my dad said go open, and there was Herschelle Gibbs standing in the doorway with a South African shirt, I was speechless. There was actually a function from our school, our high school was raising funds for [a] UK tour, and he went with me as my guest. So can you imagine how popular I was at that time?
In the 2008 Boxing Day Test, JP Duminy, playing just his second Test match, made 166 to take South Africa from 184-7 to 451 all out to help seal his country’s first-ever Test series win in Australia.
Maiden hundreds don’t come much better, do they?pic.twitter.com/CV8aNYntGy
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) June 8, 2020
“Then we were standing around with teams, and guys were obviously probing him with questions and so forth. And my dad blurts out from the back, he says, ‘Herschelle, just watch out, JP is going to play in the same team as you one day’, and I didn’t know where … and yeah, five years later I played in the same team as him.”
