England's stand-in skipper for the seven-match T20I series against Pakistan Moeen Ali has said charismatic batting all-rounder Liam Livingstone's injury is on the mend but it will take some time for him to hit his strides ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup in Australia next month.
An ankle injury while playing for Birmingham Phoenix in The Hundred forced Livingstone to miss the long T20I series in Pakistan and he will be flying straight into Australia from England next week to begin his limited training before the showpiece global event.
Livingstone is continuing with his rehabilitation at the Emirates Old Trafford for the past couple of weeks and will join the rest of his England teammates in Australia after they complete their T20I assignment in Pakistan.
England are scheduled to play three T20Is against Australia and an official warm-up against Pakistan before they take on Afghanistan in their World Cup opener on October 22 at Perth."I know he's (Livingstone) speaking to (skipper) Jos (Buttler) and I actually messaged him a couple of days ago to see how he was going," Moeen was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
"He (Livingstone) said it's getting there and he's on the mend. Hopefully, in Australia, he'll probably play the last warm-up game or something like that."When you do (injure) your ankle, it's not easy. I've done (injured) mine at the IPL and once you've rolled it (twisted) once, apparently it keeps rolling... you keep rolling it throughout your career so you've got to be really careful.
I've done mine twice and I think he's done his three times now," added Moeen."We're hoping that he's ready. He might be a little bit undercooked but he'll pick it up quickly and it's actually not been a bad thing for him to have a bit of a break from cricket."
On the ongoing series against Pakistan, Moeen said he was satisfied with how his team had fared in the Karachi leg of the tour. The sides are level 2-2 following Pakistan's dramatic win in the fourth T20I. Action will move to Lahore, where the remaining three matches will be played, beginning Wednesday.
"I'm just pleased with the way we are playing, with the young guys coming in and performing really well," he said. "Speaking to Jos, he's really pleased with the way things are going. When we lost in the summer, we were playing poorly.
You are a bit more down about those results. It was a disappointing result the other night, but it was a great game of cricket. Okay, we lost, but I feel we are playing good cricket. We lost a lot of wickets in the powerplay but we managed to stay in the game until the very end."