Last six months have been the hardest ones of my career, reveals Sam Billings

Life has been hard for 28-year-old Sam Billings, who went on to miss England's triumphant 2019 World Cup campaign due to a shoulder injury while also missing a large chunk of domestic action. There was an outside chance of the Kent man making the World Cup squad during the turn of the year, but all hopes were ended when he dislocated his shoulder in April. Now, the wicket-keeper batsman has revealed that the past six months have been the toughest of his career.

"It's been the hardest six months of my career, without a doubt, missing a victorious home World Cup, and of course it's been a tough time," Billings told ESPN Cricinfo.

However, he has since returned from injury and has ended the season on an extremely commanding note, scoring three centuries in his last four knocks. He also revealed that while the majority of the cricketers wanted the domestic season to end, he, for a fact, wanted it to continue just so that he could get more game time.

"But I've looked back on the three hundreds that I've got in a row, that probably wouldn't have happened if I hadn't got injured in a weird kind of way because when the game gets taken away from you, with stuff out of your control, it definitely, when you get back to playing, makes you far hungrier," he said.

"Probably 90 percent, 95 percent of county cricketers around the country want the season to end and I'm in that five percent who want the season to continue," he added.

Now, having been once again named in England's T20I squad to face the Kiwis, Billings is focused to stamp his authority and seal a place for himself in England's squad in the WT20 which will commence in Australia next year. 

"That's a huge goal for me," he said, making his intentions of sealing a spot in the WT20 squad clear.

"Missing out on this World Cup and being around this white-ball team, especially in England at the moment, there's so much competition for places. There's no reason why we can't go one better than the last T20 World Cup. For me that would be a huge honour and something that's definitely on my radar," he concluded.

England will travel to New Zealand to play a five-match T20I series next month, with the first of the five matches set to be played in Christchurch on November 1.