Indian Premier League English contingent shining in T20 Vitality Blast

England, who began cricket, has always been rich with their domestic leagues but when IPL offered fame, competition and a cash-rich platform and English players gave a focus on this tournament as well. After the recently concluded edition of IPL, the English county cricket started in their T20 and 4-day format. Here are English players who participated in the IPL 2022, then went back to their domestic games and are seen shining this English summer.

IPL Players who shined in Vitality 

Liam Livingstone

Entitled as the power-hitter of Punjab Kings in IPL 2022, empowering their middle-order, was seen portraying a similar role for Lancashire Lightning in T20 Vitality Blast. The hitter won a few matches for his franchise in both IPL and Vitality. He, as a batter, scored 437 runs in 14 innings, carrying a strike rate of 182.1 in IPL and continued to accumulate 164 runs in 6 innings at a strike rate of 137.8 in Blast. 

His performance as a bowler, too, caught the light in both the leagues. While he took six wickets in 12 innings with an economy of 8.78 in IPL, he improved to 7 wickets in 7 at an economy of 7.54 in Vitality Blast. 

The player didn’t stop here. After gathering confidence and a bag of runs and wickets in T20 domestic leagues, he made a valuable contribution for England in the series against the Netherlands.

Sam Billings

Sam Billings is the other Englishman who shined with his bat in both IPL and Vitality Blast. While playing for Kolkata Knight Riders, the wicket-keeper batter got eight outings and scored 169 runs averaging 24.1 runs with a strike rate of 123.4. After his stint in IPL, he joined Kent Spitfires for this season of Vitality Blast. Though the team failed to perform up to the expectations in this league, the player continued his decent form from IPL to English soil. He fetched 253 runs in 12 innings, at an average strike rate of 25.3 and 117.1, respectively. 

Alex Hales

The 33-year-old English opener had been integral to England since his debut. But the batter was dropped from England’s World Cup-winning squad in 2019 after failing a second recreational drug test. Since then, the Eoin Morgan-led team has never looked back for the batter; however, he still hopes to play international cricket again. 

Apart from international cricket, he played 6 IPL matches last in 2018. After 2018, Kolkata Knight Riders bought him in this year’s auction, but the batter pulled out, citing bubble fatigue as the reason. 

But he has been continuing to play well in other domestic leagues. He has been integral to Nottinghamshire Outlaws since 2013 and is in excellent form this season. He has scored 334 runs in 12 innings at an average of 27.8 but a whopping strike rate of 193.1. He has smashed three half-centuries till now, the highest score being 91.