28/03/2026
When Liam Livingstone recently spoke about the communication he received after being left out of the England white-ball cricket team, it struck a chord with a lot of people in the game.
Not because it was unusual — but because it felt familiar.
Moments like this don’t sit on the fringes of professional sport. They sit at the centre of it.
Selection, deselection, contracts, releases — they are constant.
And yet, for something so common, it’s an area the system still struggles to handle well.
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Professional sport is very good at bringing people in.
It invests heavily in identifying talent, developing players, and creating opportunity.
But it is far less deliberate about how it lets people go.
For many athletes and coaches, the moment of exit is brief, unclear, and at times impersonal.
Not always. But often enough to notice a pattern.
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Having experienced this side of the game myself earlier in my playing career, what stays with you isn’t just the decision.
It’s how it’s handled.
Whether the conversation is direct or delegated. Whether there is clarity or vagueness. Whether there is any sense of what comes next.
Those moments tend to linger — not because people expect to be selected forever, but because they expect to be treated with a degree of care and honesty at the point it matters most...
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When the call comes When Liam Livingstone recently spoke about the communication he received after being left out of the England white-ball cricket team, it struck a chord with a lot of people in t…
