Liam Livingstone is still in England’s plans going into the future, as per ECB director Rob Key, despite the batter’s aggressive hit out at the England and Wales Cricket Board and higher-ups including Key himself. Livingstone asserted that Key and other higher-ups ‘didn’t care’ about several players including himself, and that had seen him frozen out of conversations regarding selection to the national team.
Following Livingstone’s dramatic comments over the weekend, Key arrived on the scene for damage control, speaking to Sky Sports and trying to settle things down by reassuring fans that Livingstone would remain in the conversation heading into the future.
Key admitted that it wasn’t the most positive phone call with the England batter, calling it a ‘tetchy’ conversation, but said to the press that there was no intentions of freezing him out from the squad.
“Look, I’m not going to go into private conversations. Obviously, there’s another side to that conversation as I saw it. What I did say to Liam at the end of what was a fairly tetchy phone call to say the least [was that] there’s no way I see a player of Liam Livingstone’s ability not being up for selection for England,” said Key.
Livingstone was once in captaincy conversation for England
Livingstone had fired shots at Key and Brendon McCullum, even accusing the Kiwi coach of telling him he ‘cares too much’ and that he wouldn’t be interested in any conversation with the England batter regarding his spot in the team.
Key explained that the batter had been in talks to feature in Sri Lanka in the build-up to the T20 World Cup, but narrowly missed out. He didn’t shy away from admitting that a lack of runs had meant he didn’t find a place, but that didn’t mean he was completely out of the picture.
“We debated him for the Sri Lanka series. Liam Livingstone is very much a player that we would love to see back to his best, scoring runs, and then back in the England set-up,” said Key, before adding: “We thought as much of him [as] to make him captain at one stage, when we didn’t have all the senior players there. That’s how highly we thought of him. I still have a huge amount of time for Liam Livingstone and there’s no [reason] that someone at 32’s England career should be over.”
Key ready for criticism, but tries to placate Livingstone
Key was referring to a late 2024 trip to the West Indies, which preceded the disastrous 2025 ICC Champions Trophy. That tournament, in conjunction with a string of failures at World Cups and a disastrous Ashes tour in 2025-26, has seen Key’s role under significant pressure too. Livingstone’s comments have had an outsized impact with criticism flowing at Key from several quarters, asking for his resignation and for England cricket to move in a new direction.
Responding to those criticisms and whether he saw this as a moment in time where certain entities and individuals were taking the opportunity to have a go at him, Key admitted that this was par for the course given his position in English cricket.
“You’re always going to have times where, unfortunately, in these roles – especially when you’re struggling – you’re always going to have people that you’ve upset along the way coming back at you, and that’s absolutely fine,” he explained.
“You can’t do these jobs keeping absolutely everyone happy, whether you’re the coach of England, whether you’re in my role, any role of leadership, you’re always going to have people who are upset and that’s part of life,” he stated. “But ultimately, Liam Livingstone, or any of these players at the start of the summer in county cricket, they’re a chance to play for England.”
A big challenge for Livingstone might well be the Indian Premier League, where he was signed on for big money by Sunrisers Hyderabad. If Livingstone can find a home in the middle order for SRH, he makes an already dynamic and destructive batting unit look heads and shoulders above the rest in the competition.
