Rajasthan Royals’ English batting recruit Liam Livingstone left his team’s bubble and returned to the UK on Monday.
Livingstone has departed home to avoid potential mental stress in a restrictive environment over the past few months.
Royals franchise confirmed the development around their cricketer via a statement reading, “Liam Livingstone has flown back home late last night, due to bubble fatigue accumulated over the past year. We understand and respect his decision, and will continue supporting him in any way we can.”
In the last six months alone, Livingstone had been in multiple bio-bubbles, where regular testing for COVID-19 can take a lot of mental toll on individuals. Livingstone was part of the England team that toured South Africa for a limited-overs series late last year and then entered the bubble for his two-month-long Big Bash League stint with Perth Scorchers.
The 27-year-old right-hand batter also travelled to India with England’s white-ball squads and joined the Royals bubble after making his debut in the ODI series in Pune this March.
Fatigue borne out of restrictive bio-bubbles has been one major side-effect for players of safe on-field cricket action amid the coronavirus pandemic. With cricket boards looking to make up for their postponed fixtures last year, players have flown across the globe to complete their teams’ busy schedule while enduring challenging health safety protocols.
Livingstone isn’t the first player to opt of IPL 2021 due to bio-bubble fatigue, as even Josh Hazlewood, Joshua Philippe and Mitchell Marsh decided against participating in the competition. The three cricketers were set to play for Chennai Super Kings, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad, respectively.
Earlier, India skipper Virat Kohli had urged the cricket’s administrators to consult players before chalking out schedules keeping in mind the mental health in these difficult times.
“Scheduling is something that’s not in our control. For us, international games… every game is important and every game has value. It’s an opportunity to represent your team. For us, that remains our sole focus.
I’ve said this before also, scheduling and workload, everyone will have to be very aware of and keep an eye out for. You never know when restrictions can come in place. In future, we might have to play in bubbles so it’s very important to consider how much cricket we are playing.”
,” he had said during the England series earlier this year.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has been quite considerate of the issue and gave its all-format stars some short breaks through the winter tours of India and Sri Lanka. That is likely to continue for the rest of the year, which features long Test series against India (at home) and the Ashes (away), either side of a T20 World Cup.
For RR, Livingstone’s return is a body blow to the team already short of some of their strongest resources in the overseas category. The inaugural IPL champions are missing their premier all-rounder Ben Stokes and spearhead Jofra Archer due to injuries and the rehabilitation process.
Livingstone had walked into the RR camp with a wealth of experience behind him. The batter has played 128 matches in his overall T20 career, including matches in Pakistan Super League (PSL) besides the county circuit, and has scored 3,133 runs at a strike rate of 140.36.
Facing losses against PK and CSK either side of a victory over DC, Rajasthan are currently sixth on the IPL 2021 points table. They next play on Thursday (April 22) against RCB in Mumbai.
