Threesomes versus marriage

What started out as a fun night at a cousin's wedding ended with a "pissed" Herschelle Gibbs pulling out his wife Tenielle's hair on their way home.

"We were physically fighting while I was driving. I was trying to prevent her from grabbing the steering wheel and hitting me ... and in the process I managed to pull some of her hair out," he writes in his autobiography, To the Point.

When the marriage ended in a messy divorce in 2008, it was reported that Tenielle, a former part-time model, had instituted divorce proceedings as she had had enough of Gibbs's drinking.

But in the book, the cricketer admits that he should never have married, saying he never wanted to be tied down.

He had had "misgivings" for a long time - even as he walked down the aisle, he writes.

In March 2008, Gibbs was arrested for drunk driving in Cape Town - and knew then he had to end the marriage to stop hurting his wife.

He recalls how, after being pulled over in Camps Bay, he was taken to the Sea Point Police Station but, because they had no Breathalyser equipment, he was taken - in the back of a speeding police van - to a roadblock near the airport.

An "irritable" Gibbs told officers there to phone "the president", who would tell them to release him. He was later returned to Sea Point where he spent the night in jail - having passed out after singing one line of Engelbert Humperdinck's Please Release Me.

The charges would be dropped a year later.

Gibbs says he decided then to end his marriage: "She was too nice a woman and I couldn't keep doing bad things to her. I needed to break the cycle. I think she was also starting to lose patience with my drinking."

He writes: "I still loved Tenielle - I probably always will - but the more I thought about it, the more I realised that it just wasn't the right time for me to be married."

While in India for the inaugural Indian Premier League in 2008, Gibbs sent Tenielle an SMS telling her they should go their separate ways. She wanted them to work through their issues, but Gibbs wanted out.

The couple were divorced and Gibbs paid off her new car and gave her R550000 in cash as part of the settlement - much less than the nearly R100000 a month she reportedly demanded.

Gibbs insists he never cheated on Tenielle before they married - "not technically, anyway" - but writes that he did try to kiss model Minki van der Westhuizen in front of his wife.

A "pissed" Gibbs did not remember the incident, but Tenielle told him about it the next morning.

Before his short marriage, Gibbs scored about as much off the pitch as he did playing cricket. In the book he candidly reveals the sexual trysts, threesomes and willing Aussie "lasses" in a career spanning 20 years.

His book reveals that he and some of his teammates enjoyed lap dances from a woman they called the "Perth Stripper" while on tour down under.

It also details how the Proteas' tour to Australia in 1997/1998 was the most "successful" as far as women were concerned - it was like "going shopping ... women were falling into our laps virtually ever night".

Once, he even picked up a girl who was with a group of schoolgirls attending their matric dance in the lobby of a hotel.

At the end of the first match of the triangular ODI series between Australia and New Zealand, Gibbs was stopped in the hotel lobby by a woman and two friends, who then invited themselves up to his room.

Gibbs then phoned one of his colleagues to join them and soon there were "two beds, two cricketers and three women".

"One of them wasn't all that keen though; she just lay on the bed. Which was fine - there was more than enough for everyone," writes Gibbs.

"The other two girls, however, more than made a go of it. I got the ball rolling, but then I noticed that my mate was feeling a little left out."

Gibbs explains how this was not the first time he and his teammates were "double-teamed by a couple of eager young Aussie lasses".

During the same tour some of the single teammates partied with a group of 30 girls, "all really up for it".

New Zealand was less appetising on this front - "there just aren't too many lookers in New Zealand," he writes.

Once, they came across a pretty girl with "a bit of a big nose". Mark Boucher nicknamed her "Haakneus" (Hooknose) - but Gibbs reckons this was only because he was jealous Gibbs had made "arrangements" to meet her for a French-themed evening.

"French champagne, French fries and the last French item would be a surprise," Gibbs told the woman ahead of their date.

• vanrooyenk@sundaytimes.co.za