“I Don’t Want To Just Be Pigeonholed As A White-Ball Player” – Sam Billings Opens Up About His Dream To Play Test Cricket

Sam Billings, England’s wicketkeeper-batsman is very focused on playing as the Test Cricket squad. While he has played ODIs and T20s, he wants to play Test Cricket more than anything else.

Sam Billings is hell-bent in making it to the Test Cricket squad of England

As of now, Billings has featured in 15 ODIs and 26 T20Is. Unfortunately, a shoulder injury rendered him excluded from the England national squad that won the World Cup in 2019. Towards the end of the year, all he had was a few matches at the T20 Blast and the Championship.

He believes that playing Test Cricket will the tuning point of his career. In fact, being a part of this format is a dream and goal that he aspires to achieve. He adds that there are opportunities in Test Cricket as a batsman and a wicketkeeper. It will be a waste of his talents to be pigeonholed as a white ball player.

“That is definitely a big turning point in my mindset, and my career, I suppose. I want to play Test cricket. That is a big goal of mine. There’s no one else to blame apart from me really for that (white-ball typecasting).”

His participation in the IPL resulted with other formats taking a backseat

Sam Billings has played four IPLs. Even though these resulted in the four day format taking a backseat, at that point he viewed IPL as a chance to develop. On top of that, there is no financial gain in the first two years and he chose the base price option of INR 30 lakhs in 2016.

Upon his return Billings player 5 T20 innings but managed to score only 34 runs. This resulted with him being dropped from the white ball team against South Africa earlier this year. Later he decided to focus on the domestic season before returning to international cricket.

“The back end of last year proved to myself more than anyone that I can be more than just an average first-class cricketer or quite a good first-class cricketer. That can be as strong a format as any. But it was only when I really proved it to myself last year that that came back to the forefront of my mind.”