Back in November 2019, at the start of their Test tour of New Zealand, England trialled two very tall young batsmen, and they both made three figures in the warm-up match on their England debuts. Zak Crawley hared to his hundred, Dominic Sibley tortoised to it – but next month, finally, the tortoise might overtake the hare.
While Crawley has endured a rollercoaster career of peaks and troughs, Sibley has consistently churned out championship runs season after season. He finished day two at the Oval – having reached his second century of this season against Sussex on a placid pitch – only nine runs short of 10,000 in first-class cricket – and his age is still only 30.
Sibley’s supporters might concede that he reached his hundred in fairly typical fashion: a forward push at some left-arm spin and an inside edge for the single that completed it. But that is Sibley: never mind the strokeplay, admire the temperament and feel the aggregate.
It would make a sensible template for England’s Test team too, having Sibley anchor one end all day, while all the slap-happy strokemakers come and go at the other end.
Unlike Crawley, who has played the same way since his England debut, Sibley has tinkered during his career at Surrey and Warwickshire so that he is not so bottom-handed, not so leg side, not so limited to shovelling through midwicket. He has grown and broadened his range of shots by playing T20 cricket. More rounded now, he can drive through the offside and rotate the strike, whereas in his England career from 2019 to 2021 he would often be stuck at one end for a whole maiden over, and his Test strike-rate was no more than 34: in other words, two runs per over.
When New Zealand set England one of the most generous declarations in Test history at Lord’s in 2021 – only 273 at 3.6 an over – the crowd groaned, inwardly at any rate, at the sight of Sibley opening and grinding out 60 not out in five hours for a bore draw. But he has moved on from being that limited shoveller of 1,042 runs in 22 Tests at 28.9.
Of course Sibley’s efforts, and those of every other cricketer in England at the moment, might prove to be in vain. Brendon McCullum, the absentee landlord who is England’s head coach, does not arrive here for almost three weeks, by when the first half of the championship season will be commencing its final round; and England’s reaction to the Ashes debacle is not to have a national selector in place (you couldn’t make it up), though Steven Finn is enough of a student of the game to make a good one if appointed.
Still, England are in a position where they might have to go backwards before their Test team can go forwards, and it is possible to see Sibley return as the next England opener in place of Crawley – as the bulwark, putting overs into the legs of Australia’s ageing bowlers next summer, and in the following Ashes in Australia, instead of that fatuous philosophy which is “go harder”.
A day abbreviated by rain also saw a Somerset first-class debut by Tom Rew, England’s under-19 captain. The Rew-mour Mill has been canvassing his elder brother James Rew as England’s specialist opening batsman in place of Crawley, an enormous leap for a middle-order wicketkeeper. And the younger Rew played a white-ball rather than red-ball defensive shot as he opened the bat face and was caught second ball at third slip.
A 21-year-old Somerset left-handed opener with the balance and class to become an England Test batsman, Joshua Thomas did not add to his overnight 136 before being dismissed by his 155th ball. Glamorgan’s captain Kiran Carlson reached 209 off 232 balls against Hampshire to further his county’s fine revival. But yet again, on soft and slow early-season pitches where the ball is not carrying to keeper and slips, this round too is liable to see bore draws.