Five ‘other’ things we’ve learnt about Ottis Gibson

After he was officially unveiled as the new Proteas coach on Tuesday morning, Ottis Gibson will have little time to do anything else but familiarise himself with local cricketing structures.

He’s already commuting between Johannesburg and Centurion to check out how his national players in those two domestic four-day games are performing.

Also read: Ottis Gibson admits the ‘black label’ puts extra pressure on him

So, while it’s likely he’ll only talk immediate team matters for next month or so, here are some other interesting things we learnt about the West Indian.

He believes Kagiso Rabada and Aiden Markram are the future of the Proteas…

Aiden Markram didn’t play in England but I’ve heard a lot of great things about him. I’m looking forward to seeing him play. Rabada is an outstanding talent. The England players really respected Temba Bavuma and the way he played. The pitches in that series had been some of the hardest batting conditions for a long time in England.

He likes playing golf…

I enjoy my golf and I take it very seriously. Please don’t call me during a round, I won’t answer your call.

He’s already torturing himself by being a South African rugby fan…

I’m really looking forward to doing something special for South Africa.  South Africa to me is a sports mad place. The rugby team have had success – maybe not last Saturday but we won’t talk about that.  I watched that game by the way. I’m invested in the whole process of now being sort of an adopted South African.

Him and Proteas captain Faf du Plessis are already growing close…

Last night’s conversations were about steak and red wine. Others were about how we’re going to take the team forward. Since the announcement of me being head coach we haven’t had the opportunity to get together, so I’m going up to SuperSport Park to see him some time.

He won’t deal with losing easily…

When the team wins the players are in the spotlight and when they lose it’s all on the coach, and that’s fine. That’s always been the case. When we win I’m going to celebrate, but when we lose I can be very grumpy. I’m not going to lie. But if we lose doing what we set out to do then it’s not the end of the world.