There were times when it was difficult to know whether Dominic Sibley was playing himself back into form or whether he was actually playing himself further out of nick. That is not intended as an overly harsh or scathing observation, just the recognition that the latter can happen. Your correspondent, often a willing advocate of ugly batsmanship, experienced it on many occasions and was reminded sharply of one of them when CricViz announced at one stage of Sibley’s second-innings vigil that it was the slowest scoring Test innings by an England opener at home since yours truly made 25 off 150 balls trying to save the game against Sri Lanka, and Muttiah Muralitharan in particular, at the Oval in 1998. SponsoredScratching around at the crease

Source: The Times June 06, 2021 17:38 UTC