Opening Up About Dominic Sibley

After scoring a double hundred and a hundred in the same championship match this week, Dominic Sibley is the name on most people’s lips as Ed Smith gets ready to name his tour party for New Zealand. New writer David Wyatt thinks Sibley has what it takes to succeed at test level. Here’s why …

It’s perfectly ok to get excited about a young up and coming English batsmen. By nature, we’re prone to hold back, it’s in our history, our genetics, our DNA. However, with a World Cup trophy tucked snuggly under our arms, perhaps the era of self-confidence in English cricket is well and truly here.

After the euphoria of that magical day at Lords on the 14th of July, we settled down to watch England battle through an Ashes series. However, we’re not here to talk about the World Cup, or the Ashes, we’re hear to talk about the future.

Listening to the Switch Hit podcast recently, I was surprised to hear Butcher and co suggest that England’s strategy of selecting white ball cricketers in the red-ball format was due to the simple and undeniable fact that there weren’t a lot of alternatives banging on the proverbial door. Well, Butch may want to think again as that’s simply not the case.

All year I’ve been watching county cricketers up and down the country underline their names and shove their CV under the nose of selector Ed Smith (not literally but you get my point). And it’s ok to get excited about a young English batsmen without expectations shattering them into one million tiny pieces – lets call it the Hameed effect.

The problem is that championship evidence has been ignored. Exhibit A, Jason Roy opening for England, Dom Sibley opening for Warwickshire. One has never really done it, one has just posted a 215* to take his championship total to over 1200 runs for the season. One can’t resist a poke outside off-stump, one plays each ball on its merit. One’s defence you could drive a bus through, the other you couldn’t slide a sheet of paper through.

Now this is not to say that Dominic Sibley is perfect, or that we shouldn’t appreciate what Jason Roy gave to England’s ODI squad over the course of the summer. However, this is where we need to separate the two formats, something the selectors have failed to do. Opening the batting in red ball cricket is vastly different to opening the batting in ODIs.

Historically, what characteristics would you look for in an opening batsmen? Sound technique? Absolutely. Patience? Almost certainly. Defensive capabilities? You just gotta have it. To be a good opening batsmen in test cricket you have to have a certain make-up. You need to have everything listed above and a whole lot more.

One of the key aspects of opening the batting is taking the shine off the ball. A new ball has a pronounced seam and will move and bounce every which way. You need as an opener to take that shine away, so when your shot makers come in at #3 through #7 they have favourable conditions. If your openers fail to do that it makes it so much harder for the rest.

So this week I sat down to have a look at Dominic Sibley. We know he’s made over 1,200 county runs but does he bat time? Does he gobble up deliveries to take the shine off the ball? The answers are yes and yes.

On average this year, Sibley has spent 195 minutes per innings at the crease. And he’s faced an average of 143 balls per innings too. This means he’s eaten up nearly 24 overs when the ball’s at its most dangerous.

All cricket balls, whether they’re a Dukes or a Kookaburra, are tricky to play in the first 15 to 20 overs. The Kookaburra especially gets easier to play after the first hour or so. Sibley, therefore, should be just what England need both at home and overseas.

I think it’s almost certain that Sibley will head off with England for their tours of New Zealand, South Africa and Sri Lanka, sending a message that county cricket does matter.

Two years ago Sibley made the difficult decision to leave Surrey and join Warwickshire. He made that decision because he was batting 5 down in London and wanted to open.

After joining Warwickshire, Sibley enlisted the help of batting specialist Gary Palmer who helped Sibley change his stance from side on to front on and the rewards are evident this year. He’s the leading run scorer in county cricket, and looks like a ready made test player.

Young Dom has a sound defensive game, he knows where his off stump is, and he’s happy to bat all day – something you can’t say about many England test cricketers these days.

Earlier this year, Sibley received the call for England Lions duty and responded with a 74 and 30 against an Australia XI that included Jackson Bird. Michael Neser, and Mitchell Marsh. His next call could and should be for the real thing.

It’s ok to feel a twang of excitement about the prospect of Dominic Sibley joining the floppy haired Rory Burns and filling that huge void left by Alastair Cook.

When he first joined The Bears, Ashley Giles was Warwickshire’s sporting director so he should know everything there is to know about Sibley. I just hope that Ed Smith finally recognises his talents too.

David Wyatt

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10 comments

  • Normally I would say that Sibley was an absolute shoo-in for a place in the New Zealand party, but such is my opinion of Ed Smith’s stubbornness that I can actually see it not happening. I would go with an opening pair of Burns and Sibley, and either Stokes at 3 (and operating as a part time bowler at most) or possibly Denly at 3, with Root reverting to the no 4 slot where he bats best.

      • Denly only has a white ball contract although I do think he could do a job at 3, Burns and Sibley have to open. Here would be my 11

        Burns
        Sibley
        Denly
        Root
        Stokes/Clarke
        Pope/Clarke
        Buttler/Foakes
        Archer
        Broad
        Leach
        Anderson/Wood

  • Far too sensible an article! Of course Sibley should go and also Crawley as a back up for the first three and to gain some experience. If we don’t blood youth early we will pay for it in the long term.

  • Joe Denly’s white ball contract plus an incremental contract does seem odd (allowing for the fact that it came from the ECB) since he didn’t play any international white ball cricket this season. I would presume that it is a compromise “red ball lite” contract where they don’t feel he quite merits a full red ball contract.

  • Interesting that Buttler and Bairstow, who disappointed in the Ashes, have been awarded central contracts whereas Jack Leach (who did really well) and Denly (who did ok in the end) have not. Don’t go expecting many changes when the NZ squad is announced folks.

  • The Squad presumably will start with the 10 centrally contracted test players plus I would guess Sibley, Denley, Leach and Moeen plus another pace bowler. There are no centrally contracted spinners so they need a couple and they are quite light centrally contracted batters

  • My 1st Test team would be Burns, Sibley, Denly, Root, Stokes, Buttler, Foakes, Leach, Archer, Broad, Anderson/Wood or Woakes/S Curran (batting 8) if neither fit Anderson or Wood were fit.
    Looks to me like the side is starting to come together, especially if Denly can continue to improve as he did in the Ashes. Bairstow and Moeen would be my other 2 squad players in addition to the 14 above.

  • With the present state of top order batting on the international front I would have thought that any player who makes an impact in that area on the county circuit is worth a serious look at. We have a plethora of middle order men, some of whom are clearly white ballers, others who have a good record in both formats, yet we continue to try a shoe in players out of position, despite a historically poor record of its effectiveness.
    Denley is clearly not the answer as an opener, despite his efforts this summer. He always looks vulnerable on the back foot. His bowling should not be a factor either, as it’s no more than serviceable county standard.
    We have to try and build with players who can score big, so we can produce better first innings totals. It’s no good having a good middle order if you’re exposing them repeatedly to the new ball. You don’t often win test matches after losing early wickets.

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