‘I’m not going to sit here and cry about it,’ says Liam Livingstone. ‘I’ve got to just keep doing what I’ve got to do. Whether that’s in international cricket or not, it’s unfortunately not my choice.’
Six men have captained England across the formats in the last year, but only Livingstone now finds himself on the outer, having been contacted by head coach Brendon McCullum during the IPL to be told he wouldn’t feature in the summer white-ball squads.
It was quite a comedown for a player who as recently as November had led his country during a one-day series in the Caribbean, celebrating with his best international innings – an unbeaten 124 off 85 balls to inspire victory in Antigua.
Now, wearing the bright orange cap of Birmingham Phoenix, the team he captains in the Hundred, Livingstone matter-of-factly points out that the chat with McCullum was ‘the last thing I’ve heard’.
He tells Daily Mail Sport: ‘It wasn’t a very long conversation. I was just told that they were going with someone else, and that is pretty much all I’ve had since then. To give you an answer on where everything lies at the moment is pretty hard for me, because I don’t really know what’s happening.’
His axing from the 50-over side didn’t come as a complete shock. Since that tour de force in the West Indies, seven more ODI knocks have produced only one score above 14. But it’s not even a year since Livingstone was top of the ICC’s T20 all-rounder rankings, and he remains joint-fourth – 46 places ahead of England’s next best, Sam Curran, who is tied with Papua New Guinea’s Assad Vala.
Birmingham Phoenix captain Liam Livingstone has found himself on the outer for England
Livingstone says he hasn’t heard from Brendan McCullum since a call during the IPL
Being dropped, he says pointedly, is ‘not something completely new. I feel like I had a really good summer last year, and got to No 1 in the world. Yeah, I had a pretty bad January, February, March… which I think is a pretty harsh thing to judge me on. But I’m enjoying my cricket right now, and ultimately that’s all that matters.’
And how. In five innings for the Phoenix going into Friday’s home game against Welsh Fire, he has scored 211 runs at 70, with a strike-rate of 166 and 17 sixes – more than anyone in the tournament. Only Zak Crawley, for Northern Superchargers, has scored more runs.
He bowls too, of course, a mixture of off-spin and leg-breaks, and says he has improved his batting against spin. With the next T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka early in 2026, Livingstone might ordinarily be a shoo-in.
‘I feel like I could add a lot to an England side going to a World Cup in those conditions,’ he says, before reiterating the caveat: ‘It’s not my decision.’
Among the decision makers – managing director Rob Key, selector Luke Wright, McCullum and captain Harry Brook – the sense is that others now deserve a chance, with Jacob Bethell, Will Jacks and Tom Banton all in the mix (and none older than 26). Livingstone averages 31 from 39 ODIs, and 25 from 60 T20s – numbers that the management believe do not make an unanswerable case.
As for Livingstone’s disquiet about a lack of communication, Key on Wednesday told Sky Sports: ‘I don’t know if he’s got a phone, if he’s allowed to ring. He’s 32 years of age. If you want to find out where you are, you’ve got my number, mate.’
For now, he seems content to let his bat do the talking, and feels his best years lie ahead, citing the 35-year-old Jos Buttler as proof of the possibilities. And while he retains a self-belief that critics feel can tip over into swagger, it is also clear that his most recent stint as an international cricketer left him on continually on edge.
He says he found it hard to be ‘vulnerable’ around the England set-up, as if he was ‘treading on a tightrope all the time. Maybe actually getting dropped was a bit of a blessing in disguise for my own game. I feel like I’m in control of the way I’m playing at the moment, which is a really powerful thing for me.’
Livingstone says he has been written off for his whole career from when he was 14
His takedown of Afghanistan spinner Rashid Khan, who disappeared for 26 in five balls during a recent Hundred game at Edgbaston, was a reminder of Livingstone’s destructive potential, of his desire to ‘prove to people that I still feel I can be one of the best in the world in short-format cricket’.
He adds: ‘Somebody who plays the game the way I play it, you’re not going to sustain the world-class element year on year. There are dips in form. I look at someone like Glenn Maxwell for Australia: he can come out of nowhere and win games of cricket, and I feel like I’m that sort of player. That’s me as a cricketer: I feel I can win games on my own.’
Yet his appointment as England captain, and his ascent to the top job at the Phoenix, tell of a team man who also believes he thrives on responsibility. Part of the logic of attacking Khan, he says, is because he wanted team-mates to see what was possible – precisely the attitude of Ben Stokes when he took over the Test side.
And beneath the self-comparisons with Maxwell is a very human desire for affirmation. He greatly appreciated, for instance, a dinner during the IPL with Mo Bobat, who two years left the ECB to become director of cricket at Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and told Livingstone his best years were still to come.
On the flipside is a nagging sense that he has always had to travel upstream, ever since his teenage days in Cumberland.
‘I’ve been written off all my career,’ he says. ‘Basically, I grew up in the north of England, and it’s not the easiest journey through league cricket up in Barrow to try and make yourself into a professional cricketer. Right the way through from when I was about 14 years old, I’ve been written off.
‘It’s always nice to prove people wrong, of course, if they don’t believe in your abilities or whatever. I wouldn’t say my form at the moment is me trying to prove people wrong, but I do feel like I’ve had a chance to improve my game.
‘I’ll keep trying to play to the best of my ability, and hopefully win games of cricket in the next couple of years – whether it’s England or for franchises.’
Despite it all, his heart still says England. But it’s what the management’s heads say that will determine Livingstone’s chance of reviving his international career.