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“Are you saying I’m a bowler who bats?” Liam
Livingstone responds, smiling at a question about the current role he sees
himself playing in this England team. “I am at the moment!”
Livingstone is wanted by England to work. He is a
cricket player who is as versatile as a Swiss Army knife, offering a level of
variety that few players in the world game can match. He bowls legbreaks and
offbreaks, hits enormous sixes and excels in the field. Livi has one of those
things in the rear, whatever you would need.
However, since the World Cup began, the batting form
has completely disappeared, as evidenced by an average of 11.0 and a bowling
average of 35.28. If you go back a little farther and include the September New
Zealand series, in which he struck a superb 95 not out, the numbers are more
accurate, but they are still incorrect. 31.27 and 26.30.
He did, however, play some of his best ball-handling
in the second ODI against the West Indies. Three wickets, one of which ended
Shai Hope and Sherfane Rutherford’s 129-run partnership, which threatened to
cost England the match, and a third which bowled Hope out for 68 runs. Hope had
amassed 177 runs this series against England up to that moment, all without
reason for alarm. Next, Livingstone tore through a bat and pad.
“Yeah I think so,” Livingstone confirmed as
to whether it was his best ODI wicket to date. “I was speaking to Daws
[Richard Dawson] before, it’s probably the two balls back-to-back, being able
to do exactly what I wanted – to execute my plan pretty much perfectly.”
“I guess the most pleasing thing for me now is I
feel like I can bowl in a number of different situations and scenarios, and
also be able to impact the game like I have done today,” Livingstone said.
“So yeah, I guess the role I played [on Wednesday] was very different to
the one I played the other day.
“It’s something I’ve worked really hard on for a
number of years. It’s probably not come as naturally to me as what batting has
over the last five years. So it’s nice [to have] that when my batting’s not
really in the best place at the moment.”