Dominic Sibley knows plenty about cricket’s mercurial fortunes.
The day the England opener learned he was one of Wisden Almanack’s Cricketers of the Year, he fractured a finger fielding at slip in Warwickshire’s second county fixture of the summer – hardly ideal timing after a trying tour of India with Joe Root’s Test side.
“Some rollercoaster of a day,” he reflects.
“Though I was really, really, really pleased to get that – such a lovely accolade. My dad was too, he loves his Almanack.”
The emphasis on the coveted award’s meaning will strike a chord with those who have come to admire Sibley’s durability and resolve at the top of England’s order.
And, once fit, the 25-year-old will have an added incentive to make every run count in 2021.
Alongside Test team-mate Zak Crawley and England women’s captain Heather Knight, he is among 40 professional cricketers signed up across 15 counties to be sponsored for each run scored or wicket taken this year.
Wickets for Change forms part of a new £2m partnership between the England and Wales Cricket Board, the game’s governing body, and the Lord’s Taverners, the country’s leading youth disability sporting charity.
The initiative will extend the Taverners’ Super 1s and table-cricket coaching schemes, which offer disabled youngsters the chance to play and get involved in competitive cricket, from the current 20 counties and Scotland into all 39 counties by 2024.
‘It was just so touching’
As a teenager on tour with England’s Under-16s in India, Sibley received an instructive lesson in cricket’s transformative power.
The touring party spent a day at a school for disabled and disadvantaged youngsters – an experience Sibley vividly recalls close to a decade later.
“We’d set up different stations – Kwik Cricket, catching, various drills – and as a squad, we’d prepared for this ‘community day’ through the winter,” Sibley recalls.
“And it was one of those days where the rest of the tour, and the games we’d played, just became irrelevant.
“When we left, most of the boys – including myself – were in floods of tears on the bus. They’d made a presentation at the end to show just how thankful they were for us to come.
“It had made their week, or month – some even went as far as saying it was the best day of their lives – it was just so touching.”
The humbling experience – plus Sibley’s own familiarity with disability via family and friends – has helped keep the inevitable high and lows of an elite sporting life firmly in check.
“You can get so wrapped up in your own world,” he said.
“But when you go outside that, take yourself out of your own head for a little bit and open your eyes… to see people in a less advantaged position – and how you can bring happiness into their lives – it’s very special.”
‘The Fridge’ & ‘The Vicar’
Sibley is keen to make up for lost time. There’s an England place to keep with a Test summer looming – and he needs to make his sponsors pay.
“Me and Zak didn’t exactly contribute as much as everyone hoped for from a Taverners point of view,” he says of England’s 3-1 reverse in India.
“It was tough – obviously it was disappointing not to win the series and not do better on a personal level.
“But it was good experience playing in different and difficult conditions. And it’s about what you can learn from it – there’s definitely some things I know I need to improve on – I just try to take those learnings from it.”
That pragmatic, philosophical approach is echoed in his batting style.
Thoughtful and quietly spoken, Sibley has grasped how relative and mercurial success is, which informs his keenness to extend cricketing opportunities to others; the money raised will go towards helping deliver programmes through the players’ respective county cricket boards.
“Having fun in an environment where everyone’s having fun at their level, it’s amazing, isn’t it?” Sibley adds.
“To have a smile on your face, to succeed – to have your moment, no matter what stage it’s on – it’s incredible within yourself to have that feeling.
“That’s all that matters at the end of the day – not what anyone else thinks or feels. If this venture can provide more opportunities for that type of feeling, for people to get involved in cricket, then that’s great.”
Once known as ‘The Fridge’ for his cool temperament, Sibley has also been dubbed ‘The Vicar’ by cricketing aficionados. It’s an equally apt sobriquet for a man who clearly practises what he preaches.
