England all-rounder Liam Livingstone revealed that owners of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), the franchise for whom he played in IPL 2026, influenced team selection while discussing the hierarchy. Livingstone managed to play only two games in IPL 2026 for SRH.

According to Livingstone, the owners adored a player, which led to his favoritism. He continued by saying that SRH did not consistently try him despite having three foreign players in the starting lineup.

"I think there are like three ways of the IPL. You are locked in, and everything is kind of set out for you. There's like a fringe: you may or may not play. And your thoughts are, 'If I play, this is how it's going to go.' And like me, this year, when I went there, we got a lad (Salil Arora) in the auction that Mumbai Indians really wanted. We had more money, so we ended up getting him. The owners loved him. So, he was locked in to play for us. When we didn't have Cummins, we were playing only three overseas (players). So, I asked Dan (Vettori), Why are we playing only three overseas?" Livingstone said on the Overlap cricket podcast.

"He was like, 'The owners love this lad.' When Cummins comes back in, we are not going to change our thing, which is great. I knew that I was not going to play unless somebody got injured. So then it's a completely different mindset when you know you are not going to play,' Livingstone added.

"What expertise do these owners have?" asked cricket expert David Lloyd. "A lot of money," replied Alastair Cook, also part of the podcast.

"I don't know if they call the shots fully, but they obviously have a say. But I guess the biggest thing about Dan Vettori this year was that he told me what was happening. I knew," Livingstone said. 

SRH is owned by Sun TV Network, headed by Kalanithi Maran and Kavya Maran. Rajasthan Royals defeated SRH in the Eliminator of the IPL 2026 tournament, thanks to a blitz by Vaibhav Sooryavanshi.