Five South African players together with the team physiotherapist Craig Smith have been fined R10 000 each for smoking marijuana during post-match celebrations after the tourists had clinched the Test series with an 82-run victory over the West Indies in Antigua.

The players, Herschelle Gibbs, Roger Telemachus, Paul Adams, Justin Kemp and Andre Nel together with Smith were discovered smoking the drug in a hotel room at the Jolly Beach resort on April 10. A Misconduct Committee comprised of the team management and senior players was convened that evening at which the miscreants were punished.

However, news of the incident and the disciplinary action was apparently withheld, not just from the media, but also from the United Cricket Board. It is not clear when the UCB first became aware of events in the Caribbean, but in the case of Gibbs his latest transgression might well have rendered him unavailable for the fifth Test match and the first two one-day internationals.

Last April during Australia's brief three-match tour of South Africa Gibbs was disciplined following a late night excursion to a night club the evening before the Cape Town one-day international. He was fined R15 000 and banned for three international matches for "conduct unbecoming" of which R10 000 and the ban were suspended for a year for

The Cape Town incident took place on April 13 with his disciplinary hearing subsequently held on May 12. The Antigua incident took place on April 10 this year. It is difficult to imagine conduct more suited to the qualification "unbecoming" than smoking an illegal drug and in which case the question arises as why Gibbs' suspended sentence did not kick in.

According to UCB spokesperson Bronwyn Wilkinson, "The suspended sentence imposed on Herschelle Gibbs following an incident in Cape Town in April 2000 may not be invoked by the on-tour Misconduct Committee of the South African cricket team in the West Indies as it was not handed down by that committee. It was handed down by a Disciplinary Committee convened by the General Council of the UCBSA and thus the tour Misconduct Committee does not have the authority to invoke it.

"The United Cricket Board will review the situation as soon it has had the opportunity to do so."

It is also not clear at this stage whether Gibbs will be available for Saturday's sixth one-day international in Trinidad of whether, if he is left out, his omission would count as part of his ban.

In the three games following the disciplinary hearing in Antigua, Gibbs scored 18 and 51 in the fifth Test match, 8 in the first ODI and 104 in the second ODI.

In the space of a year Gibbs has been disciplined for carousing in a night club, banned for six months for his involvement in the match-fixing scandal and now fined for smoking marijuana. Although he has been in the best form of his life in the Caribbean, the streak of irresponsibility which has dogged his career does not appear to have been tamed.

Of the other players involved, Adams, Kemp and Nel have clean disciplinary records while Telemachus has been fined for an altercation with team-mate Daryll Cullinan during the West Indies tour.

Physiotherapist Smith is the longest-serving member of the South African squad, having been ever-present since South Africa's readmission tour of India in 1991.

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