Dubai, Oct 17 (IANS): England all-rounder Liam Livingstone said that getting into the squad for the men's T20 World Cup in the UAE and Oman had been a goal for two years. He added that for achieving this goal, he went to every T20 franchise competition for learning and improving his game in the format.
"This World Cup squad has been a goal for two years. Deep down I thought it was going to be really hard because of the talent that we have and the boys that were already ahead of me," Livingstone was quoted as saying by The Observer.
"I just tried to go to every franchise competition I was available to play in and hope I was going to learn and improve my game and get these experiences of playing in big games and hope that was going to stand me in good stead. It's been a long and tough couple of years travelling around, spending a lot of time in bubbles, but there's the reasoning behind it," added Livingstone.
The 28-year-old mentioned that learning from different coaches in franchise cricket is cool. "The cool thing about franchise cricket is you learn of different coaches, from different players and you go to different environments. Not all of them are really good, not all of them are bad, but it's definitely a cool way to live life."
After having a superb run in the English summer, Livingstone was unable to fire for Rajasthan Royals, scoring 25, 1, 4, 6, and 6 in the UAE leg of IPL 2021. But he is unperturbed by the lack of runs from the IPL. "I've been batting in different positions, in and out of the team, and it's all been a bit strange for me. But the four or five games I've played aren't going to define me as a player. It's only a couple of weeks. You'd much rather have had that experience and have learned from it rather than coming in cold to a World Cup and making mistakes then."
"Just because I've had two or three bad games doesn't mean the summer I've had is going to be forgotten, certainly not by me. You'd be very stupid to lose confidence that quickly. One thing I've learned in sport is there's no need to get too high or too low. I wasn't getting too high in the summer when I was doing really well, because I knew that what's happened in the last few weeks could be just around the corner," concluded Livingstone.
England will begin their men's T20 World Cup campaign against West Indies in Super 12 on October 23 in Dubai.