Gibbs set to pull out of India tour

It seems increasingly likely that Herschelle Gibbs will opt out of South Africa's forthcoming Test tour of India, the scene of his infamous dalliance with match-fixing in 1999-2000, which led to a six-month suspension from the game.

Gibbs, along with Nicky Boje, has been seeking assurances from the Indian board that he would be immune from prosecution if he was to set foot in the country again, and last week the pair answered and returned questionnaires sent by the Delhi Police as part of their ongoing investigations.

However, the situation has been compounded by Gibbs's wretched run of form in both international and, latterly, domestic cricket. He scored a scintillating hundred against West Indies in the Champions Trophy, but aside from that he has not passed fifty in either form of the game since March, and after consecutive defeats, he has been dropped by his provincial side, Western Province Boland, for the next round of the SuperSport Series.

Western Province Boland were thumped by the Titans in their most recent SuperSport fixture, a defeat which has led to a purge of their senior players. Graeme Smith is taking a break to meet with South Africa's new coach, Ray Jennings, but both Paul Adams and the former Zimbabwe allrounder, Neil Johnson, have joined Gibbs on the sidelines.

In Gibbs's absence, Henry Davids takes over at the top of the order, where he will form a new opening partnership with Andrew Puttick, the man who stepped in as cover for Gibbs in Sri Lanka earlier this year, and who will be among the favourites to take his place on the India tour. "Herschelle has made himself unavailable for India," Western Province Boland's coach, Peter Kirsten, told iafrica.com "and right now he's taking a break. He'll be back, and when it really counts, I'm sure we'll see the real Herschelle Gibbs."

The United Cricket Board has yet to make such a forthright statement as Kirsten, although their spokesman, Gerald de Kock, did concede that Gibbs's withdrawal was on the cards. "It won't be a black mark against his name if he doesn't tour," he emphasised. "But it's still not definite that he won't go to India."