Liam Livingstone

Liam Livingstone is a right-handed aggressive batsman from England, who is more than handy with his arm and a livewire on the field. Liam made his first-class debut for Lancashire in April 2016 and played a fantastic knock of 70 against Nottinghamshire. As a result of Livingstone's contribution in that match, Lancashire managed to topple the 300-run mark against Nottinghamshire and managed to win that first-class encounter by 8 wickets at Manchester.

Livingstone is someone who has the ability to hit big sixes and he has played franchise cricket over the past few years. His international debut came against South Africa in 2017 at home. Batting in the middle order, Liam's contributions in that T20I series were 16 & 0 respectively after which the youngster failed to make it to the England squad. It took until 2021 for Livingstone to stage a comeback to the national setup, as he got a break thanks to an injury to Joe Denly. He made his debut in 2021 in an ODI series against India, averaging 63 across that series.

It was a few months later that year in a series against Pakistan that unleashed Liam Livingstone to the world. He scored the then fastest T20I fifty and hundred for England in that series, getting to that feat off 17 and 42 balls respectively. Livingstone also smashed a 122m six off Haris Rauf in that series - replays of which were doing the rounds on social media for months on end.

Livingstone got a space for himself in the ODI team as well soon enough, with a role opening up for him with the retirement of Eoin Morgan. He scored a 17-ball fifty in an ODI against Netherlands, which was the fastest by an English batter as the team beat their own record to smash a whopping 498 runs in their innings. Livingstone was also part of the English side that won the T20I World Cup in 2022, although he didn’t have much of a role to play given the team combinations. Post the WC, he was also handed a solitary Test cap when England toured Pakistan, though his performance wasn’t all that inspiring.

Holding the record for the fastest 50 in ODIs and the fastest hundred in T20I for England, it isn’t rocket science to deduce that aggressive batting is Liam Livingstone’s USP. He is known to attack from ball one and is a very difficult player to control once he gets going. However, Livingstone has been a bit of a hit or miss commodity with some big frailties on turning tracks and against spin. Apart from his batting, Livingstone can also chip in with handy leg-breaks/ off breaks and is a gun fielder too. In short, he is a perfect package for white-ball cricket, especially in this no holds barred English setup.

Liam Livingstone given his prior experience of playing in India might well be a handy guy. The boundaries won't be that big and his big hits are well documented. But his part time spin will also come in handy for Jos Buttler and his men.