Livingstone: Ben’s return a huge boost

Liam Livingstone hailed a ‘massive boost’ for english cricket after Ben stokes declared

himself available for this winter’s ashes, following three months out of the game to deal with his mental wellbeing and an injured finger. stokes’s announcement has provided a further lift for england’s t20 side after their demolition of West indies in Dubai on saturday, when Livingstone — a fellow Cumbrian — made his World Cup debut. He spoke for the whole dressing room when he described it as ‘great news for england and for Ben himself’. Livingstone (below) added: ‘the lads have been talking about it here and it’s really nice to see Ben coming back. i have played a lot with him over the past couple of years and just to have him around is a boost for any team, especially going into a massive series like the ashes.’ there were moments during the summer when Livingstone looked like one of the few batsmen in world cricket capable of matching stokes’s box-office appeal — not least when he pummelled a 42-ball t20 century against Pakistan at trent Bridge. two days later, a giant six out of the stadium at Headingley instantly felt like the shot of the summer. Livingstone was also the undisputed star of the Hundred, crashing 348 runs — 116 more than anyone else — off 195 balls for Birmingham Phoenix. But the runs dried up at the iPL with Rajasthan Royals. and as england chased just 56 against West indies, he managed only a single before a superb return catch by left-arm spinner akeal Hossain. ‘it hasn’t been ideal,’ he said. ‘the iPL was a bit of slog for me but i have brought a lot of confidence from the summer, and i still have a lot of that stored away. thankfully in this team we have a lot of match winners on any given day and i count myself as one of them. ‘as the summer went on, the expectation grew and grew but that’s a part of the game. With t20 cricket you can’t get too high or too low. the big thing i told myself was that things were going really well but it wasn’t like i’d completed cricket. things can change very quickly. ‘Hopefully over the next couple of matches i can get back to that sort of form and help england win games of cricket.’ meanwhile, sri Lanka fast bowler Lahiru Kumara and Bangladesh opener Liton Das have been fined 25 and 15 per cent respectively of their match fees after they had to be pulled apart during sunday’s game at sharjah. Kumara had just dismissed Das when he walked aggressively in his direction, prompting a petulant response from the batsman which the iCC deemed ‘contrary to the spirit of cricket’. Bangladesh are england’s next opponents in abu Dhabi tomorrow.