Rock-solid Sibley sees had work rewarded with a ton
That’s what we know Dom can do. He’s a brilliant batter, he takes his time and he absorbed a lot of pressure.
Oliver Hannon-dalby
DOMINIC Sibley made his first century since being dropped by England last summer but Tom Bailey and Hassan Ali hit back with three late wickets to leave the opening day of Warwickshire’s LV= Insurance County Championship match against Lancashire at Emirates Old Trafford evenly poised.
Having won the toss and opted to bat first on what looks a very good pitch, the visitors ended the day on 273 for seven with Sibley unbeaten on 118 after over six hours’ unremitting effort.
And the vast majority of the credit for the Bears’ total should plainly go to the opener, who chose not to tour with England Lions in Australia before Christmas, instead preferring to stay in this country and work hard on his game with Tony Frost, Warwickshire’s batting coach.
The benefits of that approach were shown in Sibley’s more compact and better balanced technique as he coped very capably with a Lancashire attack lacking both James Anderson and Saqib Mahmood. His chanceless 227-ball century, which he reached with a single off George Balderson, took him exactly five hours to complete.
It is his first century in a red-ball match since he made 120 against the West Indies, also at Old Trafford, in July 2020’s Covid Test. Much has changed for Sibley since that match.
However, Dane Vilas’s very respectable home attack made regular breakthroughs, the first of which came in the third over of the morning.
Alex Davies, in his first innings at his former club since his departure last autumn, survived seven torrid deliveries from Bailey before letting the eighth ball go, only to see it knock out his off stump.
Sibley and Rob Yates then put on 35 for the second wicket in 13 overs before Yates also lost his off stump to a swinging delivery from Luke Wood that passed between the left-hander’s bat and pad.
Warwickshire were 84 for two at lunch and the following session of play was equally well-balanced. Sam Hain put on 82 with Sibley before coming down the pitch to a Matt Parkinson delivery that he turned into a full toss and smacked straight to short extra cover where substitute fielder, Rob Jones, took a good two-handed catch above his head.
Hain’s departure for 38 was followed half an hour later by that of the Warwickshire captain Will Rhodes, who hit three fours in his 16 runs before being bowled by a Parkinson leg-spinner to which he should have come forward.
But the dismissals of his batting partners seemed to have little effect on Sibley, who batted with a pleasingly unruffled tempo and was unbeaten on 76 at tea. A flurry of
boundaries helped him progress quite rapidly towards three figures and much of the last session of play was controlled by Warwickshire’s fifth-wicket pair, Sibley and Chris Benjamin, who put on 99.
Benjamin, who made his maiden first-class century on this ground last August, batted with some assurance for his 47 but fell to the new ball when Bailey hit him on the back leg and gave umpire Nigel Llong a relatively easy decision.
Warwickshire bowler Oliver Hannon-dalby said: “That’s what we know Dom can do.
“He’s a brilliant batter, he takes his time and he absorbed a lot of pressure from that Lancashire attack. It was a fantastic effort but that’s Dom at his best, taking time out of the game.”