Level-headed, softly-spoken and meticulous in preparation... The making of Dom Sibley - England's newest star bound for greatness

As the 24-year-old prepares to make his Test debut in New Zealand, NICK HOWSON speaks to the individuals who took his career from a net with his dad to the summit of county cricket

Any seasoned traveller will tell you that the journey is not defined by the destination, but by the story. The undulating tale of adversity, success, joy, and disappointment adds character to any voyage, and inevitably, the individual at the epicenter of it.

As destinations go, few are more picturesque than The Bay Oval at Mount Maunganui, Tauranga - situated a mere slog-sweep from the Bay of Plenty. For Epsom's Dom Sibley, the scenic surroundings will likely be a blur as he completes his own route from suburbia to the England Test team.

Similar to many initial forays into sport, family influence played a key role. Two generations of the Sibley family had graced Ashtead Cricket Club - a village side located in leafy Surrey - before Sibley Jr walked down Woodfield Lane for the first time. Few could have predicted what would follow.

With a busy working life to balance, father Mark would take Dom to his own matches in a simple attempt to maximise their time together. Those outings would eventually pique his interest in the sport, an intrigue that would blossom.

"I played club cricket at Ashtead as did my father," he told The Cricketer. "The first port of call in an attempt to spend more time with Dom initially was to drag him to quite a lot of cricket matches. That is the way it panned out.

"We started playing a bit of cricket and I bowled at him a lot in the nets when he was a young lad. I quickly worked out that he could play a bit. He could clearly hit a ball while I was still playing.

"He got into the Surrey junior set-up, so he started playing more competitive cricket there and then very quickly I pulled out of playing league cricket and started playing adult games on a Sunday."

Central to his early development was Matt Homes, now director cricket at Ashtead, who noticed Sibley's talent at a tender age. He was picked up by Surrey at Under-9 level - a step above his age group - and exhibited his unique levels of concentration and quality during one particular outing against Northamptonshire.

Sir Alastair Cook tips Dom Sibley for England Test debut in New Zealand series

"We drove up and he scored a hundred and he was just leaps and bounds above all the other lads," said Homes, speaking to The Cricketer. "At U9 the skill level can be good but physically boys can struggle. But he was way beyond anything else. He hit a hundred with ease. 

"It is extremely difficult to say at that point whether someone is going to make it, but what you could say about Dom was that he had that potential to really go on and become a professional cricketer. 

"At the time the Surrey manager said this guy is going to play for England. You see lots of guys who are talented but Dom was always someone who stood out at every age group and you could see that was a pathway for him."

Underpinning his early club and county youth outings were his school appearances for Whitgift, a former parish for Jason Roy and Rory Burns, not to mention England Rugby World Cup finalist Elliot Daly, and Callum Hudson-Odoi, the England football international. It was the perfect surroundings for Sibley's talent to grow and where any ambitions of making a career out of his natural talent would surely be realised.

"He was being given a lot of opportunities to play cricket not just at his age group but also for the first XI," said his dad. "They've produced a lot of top-class players. We thought it was a good school for him to go to because he would be given opportunities to play with good players in a set-up with individuals in a set-up that would help him look at getting a career within cricket."

Of the important junctures between Sibley and the international recognition which has accompanied his rise in the game, many of them occurred in July 2011 when he was still two months short of 16. The first of them came at Cricket Field Road in Horsham, when Sibley made his debut for the Surrey Second XI. Opening with Arun Harinath and facing a Sussex attack including Amjad Khan, James Anyon and Will Beer he scored 45; a knock which perfectly exhibited why future stardom was inevitable.

"If you watched that you wouldn't have known who was the 15-year-old and who was the pro," said Surrey academy director Gareth Townsend, who had first noticed Sibley's talent three years earlier. "He played and looked ease and played the new ball really well. I think he got 40-odd and that was a good indicator. He'd come into a challenging second XI game on a pitch which was doing a bit and he was composed and technically very at ease with what was happening.

^{Dom Sibley showed immediate appetite for cricket at Ashtead}

"He could only play two days out of the three because he had to go back to school to play in a cup competition. We agreed that he would play for us for two days. 

"We bought him a bit from left-field during term time. He played with such maturity and he was at ease in that environment. Even though it was a pressured game for him, just out of school, but it was water off a ducks back for him. He just got on with it. 

"I thought then that his temperament and approach was such that it would hold him in good stead. He always technically dealt well with the shorter ball because of his height, he never struggled with that.

"He has always been able to play that back-of-a-length ball with more ease than some players because of his height and the way he is built. That just meant the dynamics of his movement made it quite comfortable playing a bouncing ball with the ball rising up."

Three weeks later, Sibley wowed onlookers at the Bunbury Festival held at Monmouth School. The Under-15 50-over event saw him make scores of 44, 48, 90 not out and 74 for an English Schools Cricket Association London and East side, leading to him scooping five separate awards including Player of the Festival, Top Run-Scorer and Best Batsman.

Galvanised by defeat in the final of the competition, he returned to Ashtead to record one of the most significant innings of his life. Against a Weybridge side whose attack was spearheaded by captain Jimmy Ormond, who 10 years previous had dismissed Ricky Ponting and Rahul Dravid in his two Tests for England, Sibley hit a breathtaking 200 in the Surrey Championship.

"Dom played bloody well, made 200 and then started opening the batting for Ashtead on a regular basis when he wasn't playing at Whitgift," added Mark.

Following sporadic appearances for Surrey's seconds, England's first call came in the shape of the Under-19 tour to South Africa. He made a two-ball duck on debut at Newlands, but typically for an individual whose character possesses more layers than an onion, he struck a fifty and a half-century in his next two innings.

Though still at Whitgift, Sibley was handed his professional debut by Surrey in the Yorkshire Bank 40 in August 2013, against an Essex side boasting Ravi Bopara and Ryan ten Doeschate. It was otherwise a day to forget as, opening alongside Roy, he was forced to retire hurt after suffering a cut to his knee which forced him to be stretchered from the middle.

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Fully recovered and now a part of Surrey's County Championship side, Sibley didn't allow such troubles during the early stages of his elite career to derail his development. In September of the same year, while embarking on A-Levels in Geography, English, and PE, Sibley made perhaps the most eyecatching score his entire career.

On his third first-class outing he mashed an epic 242 against Yorkshire. In doing so he squashed a series of records, which included becoming county cricket's youngster double centurion and the 13th of all time. Only WG Grace had scored one at a more tender age as an Englishman. It was a knock that lasted one minute short of 10 hours.

Despite reaching such significant milestones, Sibley was becoming a victim of Surrey's embarrassment of riches. Between his innings against Yorkshire and July 2017, he made just 25 first-class outings for The Kia Oval club. Rory Burns, Graeme Smith, Steven Davies, Harinath and latterly Mark Stoneman and Scott Borthwick meant opportunities in the top three were limited. Taking the next step would require leaving a community he had called home for his entire cricketing journey.

"From Dominic's sake he made that decision after a contractual offer here - it wasn't like he was not renewed," said Townsend, whose club offered Sibley a three-year deal. "He made that decision. I don't think it was something he a first wanted to do but he took that decision. He had opportunities to play with us I don't think it has done him any harm at all."

It was across the opening two days of the first county match of the season that Warwickshire's Jim Troughton first took a real shine to Sibley. Batting at five in a glittering Surrey line-up which by now had added Kumar Sangakkara he made a watchful 34 from 121 deliveries across nearly two-and-a-half hours - another example of his ability to bat patiently.

"He batted at five in that first game of the season, very accomplished and he did all the things that we like the look of," said Troughton. "We knew that with the signings they'd made he might not get a lot of opportunities there. He just saw the opportunity knowing where we were with our batters and knowing that Varun Chopra had moved on in the winter of 2016. 

"He knew he would have that consistency of selection and that backing. For me, as a young lad, he seemed very mature, very clear on how he backed himself as a player. Just a lovely kid and someone who was very ambitious and someone who fitted the character as well as the skillset that we were looking for."

Sibley would play another five first-class matches for Surrey - he registered a half-century against his future employers - but the die was firmly cast. The Bears, in the form of Troughton and sport director Ashley Giles, met with the right-hander at Costa Coffee a stone's throw from Marylebone Train Station and were immediately struck but his calm demeanor and determination to improve.

"We saw a vision for him as a Bear and it felt like a good conversation and we were lucky enough that once things did develop that Surrey allowed him to come to us for the rest of the season (on loan)," Troughton explained.

"The way he finished that season (three half-centuries in 12 innings) we were pretty confident we had got a player for that season and one that was extremely motivated to go to a higher level."

^{Despite breaking through at Surrey, regular Championship opportunities were limited}

Perhaps perversely given his considerate batting style, it was in the Blast where he enjoyed initial success at Warwickshire, helping them reach T20 Finals Day in 2017 with two fifties and a 49. They were edged out by Nottinghamshire in the final but Troughton had seen enough to be convinced that the permanent arrangement beginning in 2018 would be a fruitful one.

However, it would be fair to observe that the step-up once again proved to be a stumbling block. Sibley went past 19 just once in his first 12 innings of the 2018 campaign before a century at Tunbridge Wells against Kent. But the ultimate problem-solver in county cricket finally found a way on a consistent basis, reaching three figures in each of the final three matches of the campaign.

"He put a fair bit of pressure on himself the first part of 2018 and the runs didn't quite come for him but we kept with our consistency in selection and he eventually came good," added Troughton, whose side won promotion back to Division One that season.

"We had seen enough to know he had a good technique, knows where his off-stump and can bat long periods of time. He finished the season really strongly and went from strength to strength that winter."

By mid-May in 2019 Sibley had accumulated seven first-class centuries in as many matches, including in the MCC game against reigning champions and former club Surrey. With Sir Alastair Cook having departed England the previous summer, the Keaton Jennings experiment having been abandoned, Joe Denly looking uncertain and Burns still finding hit feet, the conversation around Sibley now had an international tinge.

"The most impressive thing with Dom is even during that period when his name was mentioned it actually made him even more prolific with the runs," explained Troughton. "When you start being mentioned you can put more pressure on yourself and you're desperate to build on what you've done but he actually went from strength to strength. I think the key asset he has is to bat long periods and score heavily and he did that."

Though overlooked for an Ashes series which ended without England being able to regain the urn, it allowed Sibley more time to grow his reputation. In his final two innings of the season he struck an unbeaten double century before a second-innings 109 against Nottinghamshire. He finished the campaign having scored the most runs (1,324) and faced the most deliveries (3.024). It meant that when the squad for the two-Test tour to New Zealand was confirmed on September 23, Sibley's selection was a foregone conclusion.

The Kiwi attack of Trent Boult, Tim Southee and Lockie Ferguson will represent the latest test of Sibley's temperament, not least his technique. Giles, now director of England cricket, described him as an "ugly duckling" at the crease but as Burns and Steve Smith have proved substance very often eclipses style.

"Technically he knows his game," stated Troughton. "Giles made a comment that it is not the most pleasing to the eye but we're in an age now where the best batter in the world has a technique that is not exactly textbook method. Dom is very driven and ambitious. 

"He worked on a lot of technical things because that is what he needs to manage. When you're under pressure or out of nick is when you rely on your technique. In tough conditions or if you're slightly off it, how quickly you can avoid those troughs and capitalise on purple patches is vital and he has shown he can do that."

^{An imperious 2019 season with Warwickshire led to Dom Sibley's international call-up}

Early signs that Sibley will make the step-up to international level are good, following a century in the opening warm-up match against a New Zealand XI at Whangarei. But even if Test cricket initially proves to be a difficult hurdle, there is plenty of evidence he has the mental fortitude to prevail.

Indeed, speaking to any individual from Sibley's past, the universal feeling is his character is by his most impressive attribute. He is a quiet, softly-spoken individual driven to improve, considerate of others, assured and yet self-aware enough to listen to constructive criticism.

"The things that stood out were that he was always very confident and extremely humble," added Homes. "So any time from junior cricket until now anytime he comes down to the club he makes a real effort to talk to everyone. He is very polite. He is more interested in them and what they're up to than about his own cricket. There is no air of arrogance whatsoever."

Townsend said: "He has always been a strong-willed individual and a good idea of what he wants to do. Therefore coaching wise it was a fair challenge. He was equal in the conversation so he wouldn't just sit there and nod his head and go and do it. He would ask questions and want it to be explained and what the ramifications of these adaptions and changes in terms of where his game was going.

"He wanted a steer on it as much as the coach. That is important for all players. Young players can tend to sit, listen and go out and do as they're told as opposed to having ownership of what they want to do and the way they wanted to play. 

"Because he was pushed up and played up his age profiles all the way through he has managed that well so it was temperament and composure at the crease, even underneath the nerves. He always let as though he was in control of what he was doing and the way he managed himself. 

"He always scored heavily and when he got in our system, he scored a double hundred for our Under-17s, the same year he got the double hundred for the first-team. That summer he was used to scoring a lot of big score in the levels of cricket that he played in."

Dad Mark is almost perplexed about his son's character - "he hasn't got it from me!" - but is braced for the international honours which loom. If and when the 24-year-old takes guard for the first time as an England Test player this week, an event the family are planning to be in New Zealand for, it will be a moment of immense pride.

"It would be incredible," he admitted. "To him, it is a dream and if you're playing county cricket as a youngster the next stage is seeing if you're good enough to play at that level. I am just hoping that having got on the plane he gets a go."

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