Dominic Sibley

Right from a very young age, Dominic Peter Sibley showed signs of great potential with the bat and hence, graduated from the youth system at Surrey before joining Warwickshire as part of a contentious swap that saw Rikki Clarke (Warwickshire to Surrey) and Sibley (Surrey to Warwickshire) switch their respective sides.

Sibley joined Warwickshire midway through the 2017 season and offered much-needed balance at the top with two of the club's hard-hitting batsmen (Ed Pollock and Adam Hose) providing blazing starts more often than not. A canny operator with the ball, Sibley's off-breaks seem more than handy on surfaces that offer grip and bounce. He was appointed as the county's vice-captain during the 2017 winter and from that point, there was no looking back for him. A barnstorming 2018 season followed where he emerged as the leading run-scorer for Warwickshire - hammering 1324 runs in 13 matches at an average of 69.68.

Roy's Ashes debacle spurred England's selectors to look for an alternative for the New Zealand Tests and it was hard for them to ignore Sibley, who got his maiden call-up to the England Test team. With age on his side, a class act with the bat and with loads of elegance to back his technique, Sibley could well turn out to be the long-term opener that England are searching for, since the retirement of Alastair Cook, and a slow start in the Tests against New Zealand will not deter the management from giving him a longer rope.