England’s players have been sequestered in their Port of Spain hotel after a man was shot dead yards from the front door of the building during their first night in Trinidad.
The England and Wales Cricket Board’s security staff had already advised the players not to leave the Hyatt Regency except for their two scheduled matches, a prearranged round of golf and a single training session on Monday morning. But the severity of the threat was illustrated when a 47-year-old man was murdered at around 1.20am on Monday on Wrightson Road, where the hotel is located.
Trinidad and Tobago has experienced a massive spike in gun crime in recent years, and according to latest statistics it has the world’s sixth highest crime rate and ranks 11th for gun deaths per capita. The British government’s travel advice for Trinidad states that “there is a high level of violent crime” with “gang-related attacks and shootings increasing around the city centre of Port of Spain”.
Amid difficult circumstances the England players need to turn their attention to on-pitch matters and, in that regard, while they may be 2-1 down in their Twenty20 series against West Indies as they head into the penultimate game on Tuesday, Liam Livingstone believes the team have “taken a big step forward” in the Caribbean and proved they are “as good as any team in the world” when playing to their strengths.
After being beaten by free-scoring, big-hitting opponents in the first two games, England won the third match in dramatic style, scoring 74 runs in the last four overs to reach their target of 223 with a ball to spare. “We had a little chat and tried to say: ‘Let’s take them on at their own game,’” Livingstone said.
“We feel like we’re as good as any team in the world when we do that. The best thing for us is from the start of the series to where we are now, we feel like we’re learning. I feel like we’ve taken a big step forward and ultimately that’s what we want to do. Obviously we want to win this series but there’s a World Cup coming up, you want to play your best cricket at that time.”
Livingstone is averaging 24.66 in the series but at a strike rate of 160.86, making it on that metric his best series since his breakthrough summer of 2021. “Your strike rate is something that you pride yourself on,” he said. “Certainly for me it’s one of my strengths. In previous [times] you’d probably have a bigger eye on your average.
“Nowadays I’m all about sixes per game and my strike rate, and probably one of my biggest things is number of dot balls in my first five balls. That’s where I feel like I can make the biggest impact in this team, being able to hit boundaries from ball one and that’s something I’ve done really well in other franchise gigs around the world.
“I feel like I’m affecting games for England. I’d like to win games for England by myself, which I feel like I’m capable of. Hopefully I’m back on an upward curve with my batting, which has probably been on a downward curve for the last couple of months. I’ve felt really good in this series, really clear, and I feel like I’m heading in the right direction.”
The perfect template for the type of innings Livingstone would like to play came on Saturday from Harry Brook, the 24-year-old Yorkshireman scoring 31 off just seven balls to take the team to victory.
“They’re real match-winning innings that you don’t play very often,” Livingstone said. “People always say they want to get 70, 80, 90. I think there are times in T20 cricket, especially in the middle order, it’s actually the big cameos that make the big difference.”
Brook’s innings, as well as Phil Salt’s unbeaten 56-ball 109 in the same game, were perfectly timed reminders of their abilities ahead of the Indian Premier League player auction, and if there were nerves in the England camp on the eve of Tuesday’s game they were most likely caused by the possibility that players will wake in the morning significantly enriched. Eight squad members, including Brook and Salt, are among the 25 Englishmen on the list for the auction, which is due to start in Dubai at 7.30am GMT, or 3.30am in Trinidad.
Livingstone was one of the big winners of the 2022 auction, when he was bought by Punjab Kings for £1.1m. His place in next year’s tournament is already secure after he was retained by the team for a third season, where he will again be joined by Sam Curran and Jonny Bairstow. “Hopefully we get another couple of English boys,” he said.
“It’ll be cool tomorrow. Some of the boys will get picked up and I’m sure there’ll be a laugh on the way to the game. It’s quite a cool day when you’re involved in it, but it’s also nice when you’re already guaranteed to go back.”
