Dom Sibley interview: I was happy England dropped me – by the end I was hoping for rain

If, by the end of Dom Sibley’s 22-Test run in the England team, cricket did not look like much fun, that is because he was not having any.

“The pressure of Test cricket can take the enjoyment out of it. You see that with a lot of players,” Sibley tells Telegraph Sport in his first sit-down interview for three years.

Sibley is considered by his peers to be among the most mentally tough players on the circuit. He can concentrate for hours on end while batting, and was brave enough to leave his home county Surrey aged 22 in search of greater opportunity. But, by the end of his time in the Test side, he was so “technically and mentally” scrambled that he was relieved to be dropped.

“Definitely,” Sibley says, when asked if he was hearing what people were saying about his game. “That’s natural, in the world we live in it’s so difficult to avoid. Regardless of what the noise was, I was in my own space thinking that it was going to be a tough day. I was waking up and thinking ‘I could do with those clouds coming in…’

“I look back at clips of how I was moving and my technique, and I think ‘Christ, how did it get to that?’ Being out in the middle, facing bowlers, and thinking ‘genuinely, I don’t know how I am going to score against these guys’.

“Even before the ball had been bowled, I was almost in a position and my body was doing things that I wasn’t in control of, and it was getting me in such a bad place that I was never going to be able to recover. When you are facing guys like [Jasprit] Bumrah, who are unbelievable, I just wasn’t in a place to deal with that.

“I was thinking my technique isn’t allowing me to succeed, that is quite a s----y place to be. When I was dropped, I was very much like ‘corr, that is probably a good thing’. I didn’t have any bitterness towards coaches about selection. I was just in the bush technically, and mentally, and it was good that I was taken out of that environment.”

Sibley was dropped two Tests into a series against India at a time when the lowest ebbs of the old England, before Bazball, were yet to be reached. There were still 10 Tests – just one of them won – remaining of the Joe Root era, including a drubbing Down Under and defeat in the Caribbean. But the struggling Sibley has, in some quarters, come to represent the era because of the contrast in his style with Bazball. Sibley’s Test strike-rate of 34 is a sharp contrast with the current swashbuckling openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett. He describes himself as being “pigeon-holed” for his defensive style, but the 28-year-old does not disagree entirely.

“Not in terms of the knocks I played for England at the back end,” he says. “I blocked the s--- out of it. Look at the New Zealand game [at Lord’s in 2021], when we didn’t go for the chase [of 273]. I was clinging on. I remember thinking that I got 60 not out [from 207 balls], but what’s the point? It’s only benefiting myself. That is a picture of someone who is desperate to hang onto a place, trying to play another game.”

It has taken Sibley almost three years – in which time he has won the County Championship with both Warwickshire and Surrey, and never seen the runs dry up – to rediscover his love of the game. He credits a winter away from cricket and a nine-to-five routine for giving him perspective.

‘I didn’t miss the game’

Rather than do a normal preseason with Surrey, Sibley spent a few months doing work experience with Pitch International, where the Surrey chairman Oli Slipper works. Each day, he would travel from his home in Clapham to use the Oval gym – “I’d get here for 6am, and Stewie [director of cricket Alec Stewart] would just be finishing his session” – then head to the office in Putney. He picked up a bat just once, which was when some office colleagues joined him at the Oval to tune up for their Last Man Stands season. “They got me out plenty,” he laughs.

“When I was at Warwickshire I trained so hard, went to the indoor school spending hours trying to get my hands tight and other technical stuff,” he explains. “When you’ve just been dropped you want to get back in so quickly that you make changes quickly. With hindsight, you get a bit older and sometimes pulling away from the game can be a positive. The more you practise, the worse it gets.

“The best thing I have done is go months without picking up a bat. I didn’t miss the game. I came back feeling refreshed mentally. It reminded me that the game isn’t everything.

“It’s helped my cricket. It’s only really now, in this preseason, where I’ve got back to a place where I’m playing a bit more like I was when I was a kid. For a period of time I didn’t really enjoy batting, so it’s trying to find that again.

“I promised myself in preseason that I would be more positive, be braver in the games. I don’t mean playing recklessly, just trying to impose myself on the game a bit more. I don’t want to leave runs out there from bad balls. I enjoy watching this Test team, watching the boys attacking. You think it does look a bit more enjoyable than grafting, and waiting for one with your name on it, which happens in county cricket. I might as well score a bit quicker.”

If espousing the virtues of the Bazballers sounds like a come-and-get-me-plea to Rob Key and co, it is not. While he would “love” to play Test cricket again, and thinks he would be better equipped a second time, it is not something he is losing sleep over anymore.

His Championship strike-rate this season remains just 47 (up from a career mark of 40), but he has visibly more scoring options, especially through the offside, and is averaging more than 50. His expanded game has even forced its way into the Surrey T20 team, making 44 from 26 balls to beat Glamorgan last Friday. Despite four years between T20 games, he would now love to play some franchise cricket.

In the Championship, Sibley is now Rory Burns’s vice-captain and is part of a top six containing four other men he played with for England, plus Jamie Smith, who Sibley says is recognised as “an absolute genius” by those who have already played at international level.

Focus on winning titles, backed by a big membership, provides plenty of motivation. Still top of the table, this week they face their great rivals Essex, with Surrey trying to “pack out” the Kia Oval as they host a Festival of Red Ball Cricket. After an innings win over Worcestershire, they are 12 points clear at the top of Division One.

Sibley has also reconnected with Ashtead CC, two minutes from where his parents live and where his dad and granddad played before him. He has played a handful of games for them over the last couple of years, which has helped him reconnect with his roots and seeing a few old faces has been as refreshing as his long off-season break. It has been a further reminder that the game is meant to be fun.