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England all-rounder Liam Livingstone made massive statements after the conclusion of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2026) season, where he played only a few matches for Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Livingstone claims that due to the nature of the pitch he felt quite bored in some matches. The experienced all-rounder, who is mostly known for playing big shots, said that the pitches used in IPL 2026 were so flat that they made it very easy to break the bowlers’ hits.
Liam Livingstone has criticized the pitches of IPL 2026
Ahead of the IPL 2026 season, Sunrisers Hyderabad picked up Liam Livingstone for a whopping price of Rs 13 crore. In return for that expensive price, he scored only 15 runs at an average of 7.50 in 2 innings. However, he points out that the batsmen who scored a lot of runs in the league this year executed those shots with ease because the surface was very flat.
For example, he talked about their match against Mumbai Indians, where Hyderabad won by 6 wickets while chasing the target of 244 runs. According to the English all-rounder, it was a boring match for him as the batsmen were hitting big shots without facing any trouble.
It was actually quite boring: Liam Livingstone
“We were playing Mumbai, and we chased 230 or 240 runs in 18 overs. I thought it was quite boring actually. Just watching people go 6, 6, 6. There’s no real skill involved. The pitches were very flat, and the impact player just comes in.”
“The boundaries are huge, but the pitches are very flat. In Mumbai, the ball just flies. In Hyderabad, he played maybe five or six times on the same pitch,” Liam Livingstone said on the Stick to Cricket podcast.
Liam Livingstone on Vaibhav Suryavanshi
Despite criticizing the pitches in IPL 2026, he acknowledges the real talent of Vaibhav Suryavanshi. Liam Livingstone says he has never seen anything like it before.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’ve been there; this year was my seventh IPL. And I’ve played with and against some very good players, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Livingstone said.
He further mentioned that to get the 15-year-old batsman out, he used every possible method that his bowlers could use. He pitched the ball short, kept it down leg and middle, but nothing proved effective against Vaibhav Suryavanshi.
Talking about the Mumbai Indians vs Sunrisers Hyderabad match held at Wankhede Stadium on April 29, Mumbai scored 243 runs in 20 overs. Opener Ryan Rickelton remained unbeaten on 123 runs in 55 balls with the help of ten fours and eight sixes.
Sunrisers achieved the target with 8 balls remaining. Travis Head (76 runs off 30 balls), Heinrich Klaasen (65* runs off 30 balls), Abhishek Sharma (45 runs off 24 balls), and Salil Arora (30* runs off 10 balls) made the run chase look easy as they attacked the opposition bowlers without any hesitation.
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