Leeds (England) - A few years ago in Cape Town a schoolboy too young to hold a car driver's licence arrived at Newlands the day sponsored cars were being palmed off to the senior members of the Western Province squad.

'Don't let it bother you youngster, we'll get you a scooter instead,' said Eric Simons, patting the schoolboy Gibbs on the shoulder.

Bowlers might be forgiven for thinking that Gibbs' fast running and fast scoring earned him the sobriquet, and he was up to his old tricks again today.

Nicknames tend to stick but Gibbs should righfully have traded in the moped metaphor for something more in keeping with his batting skills and talents. Since the start of the World Cup he has been going through the gears, test driving a variety of pitches before finding vehicles such as Edgbaston and Headingley that suit him best.

If he was none too happy with his efforts against New Zealand at Edgbaston last week he at least found the right pitch and bowling attack from which to score South Africa's first century of the tournament and help his side score 271 for seven in what has become a crucial end of Super Sixes clash. If he has had any regrets about what he missed in his youth it has not been evident: a trial with a top British soccer club did not result in anything other than a taste of bitter winter weather and a knee injury he picked up later ruled him out of what could have been a promising rugby career.

Now he is as much a hero on the chilly wind-swept Cape Flats as he is around the leafy, luxurious Ronderbosch where Newlands nestles and the Scooter legend began. Yet it was a team effort. Gibbs is not the sort to dwell too long on an ego trip: he had as partners Gary Kirsten, Daryl Cullinan, Hansie Cronje and Jonty Rhodes and the four of them did as much as 'Scooter' to put together a challenging total for the Australians to chase.

And they put it together in an entertaining fashion, some of it the result of patchy, indifferent and often clumsy Aussie fielding; the Aussies were an unimpressive lot. Even their efforts to cut off boundaries had a touch of the burlesque, as if Inzamam-ul-Haq had a disease which had also spread to the Aussies yesterday and the Indians and New Zealanders on Saturday at Trent Bridge. As it is with Scooter, if not with Cullinan then certainly with Rhodes, the 'athletics meeting' was always part of the run-building exercise. Good fun it was too. A partnership of 95 for the second wicket with Cullinan was as entertaining an exercise as we are going to see in this tournament. Gibbs ran 39 singles and eight twos, one of which brought up his three figure total.

The 95 came off 124 balls while the 78 runs for the fourth wicket between Gibbs and Rhodes came off a matter of 69 balls, which meant the boundaries may have been in short supply but the running between wickets put the Australians under pressure. And as against New Zealand at Trent Bridge the first wicket partnership with Kirsten helped break up the composure of the inner fielding ring.

Gibbs century served welcome notice that there are others in the side who can contribute as heavily with the bat as have Jacques Kallis and Lance Klusener. The boundary which took Gibbs to his 50 also meant he had scored the most runs for South Africa in the World Cup with 311.