Dom Sibley dedicates his latest Surrey century to the late Graham Thorpe

The One-Day Cup has seen Dom Sibley don the moniker of ‘King of the out-grounds’ since Surrey have swapped the sophisticated surroundings of The Oval for 50-over trips to Rugby School, Guildford and Kibworth.

The 28-year-old opener hit 149, 72 and 105 against Warwickshire, Notts and Leicestershire. But only the last of these, which he dedicated to the late Graham Thorpe, resulted in victory for the South Londoners, who have continued to struggle due to the draw of The Hundred on Surrey’s resources.

“It was good to finally get over the line against Leicestershire,” said Sibley, after the 17-run victory, Surrey’s first in this year’s Metro Bank, at Kibworth. “Tom Scriven played really well for them at the end there to get it close, and you could see that we have been finding it tough.”

The absence of 15 players has left the South Londoners with just three proven operators – Sibley, plus skipper Rory Burns and the now former England wicketkeeper Ben Foakes.

Sibley said: “It was quite a difficult wicket, with a bit of exaggerated bounce and it nipped around throughout. It was more like a red ball game.

“It was good to have Ryan [Patel] and Geddo [Ben Geddes] batting with a lot of positive intent to take the pressure off me a bit.

“It has been a tough 24 hours after hearing about Graham Thorpe yesterday morning. He was a great batting coach and a top man too, one who always saw the human side of the game.

“He would be the one to put an arm around your shoulder or send a positive text message when you were struggling, and I will always treasure that.

“It is very sad for everyone who knew him, and it was good to win for him.”

Four days earlier, Sibley hit a List A career best 149 against Warwickshire, with whom he spent six summers as a player. But, with the Bears holding on to win by three runs at Rugby, it was a case of so near, yet so far.

“To get that close and not get over the line is hard to take,” said Sibley. “We took it as deep as we could, but it is pretty frustrating. We just kept losing wickets at important phases of the game and came out on the wrong side.

Sibley added: “It was great to see old friends and people that mean a lot to me. I had a great time at Warwickshire and have got a lot of love for a lot of people here, so it was nice to see some familiar faces. It was just a shame they got the better of us today.

“It was nice to come to a ground I hadn’t played at before. Rugby School is a lovely venue and a good cricket wicket with two scores over 300, so a good day’s cricket.”

At Guildford, on Sunday, there was only one side in it after Notts racked up 378-6 – the fourth highest total Surrey have ever conceded in List A cricket and the biggest at Woodbridge Road – thanks to Ben Slater’s 164.

Fast bowler Conor McKerr added a touch of gloss for the hosts by following-up his 3-78 with a rumbustious 71 off 36 balls, including three sixes, as the Oval outfit were downed by 107 runs.

“I’m happy with the way I batted,” said McKerr. “But, as a team, we didn’t bowl as well as we would have liked and neither did we bat well enough.

“When a team scores almost 380 against you then you need everything to go right if you are going to have a chance of chasing it down.

“They probably got at least 40 runs too many, and with the bat we were around 60 short of par in those conditions. That was the difference today.”

PICTURE: KEITH GILLARD