LIAM Livingstone believes the freedom with which England are playing will help him when he joins up with the senior squad for the T20 internationals against South Africa.

The 23-year-old Lancashire and England Lions all-rounder was told of his first full call-up by national selector James Whitaker on the third day of the County Championship match against Middlesex.

"It was obviously a very nice moment for me and I'm just looking forward to next week now," he said.

"Your performances get you picked and it's a great environment in which to be playing at the moment. I'm guessing that the senior squad is pretty similar to the Lions in that you get a lot of freedom and that's very suited to the way I play my cricket. It's very exciting.

"It's nice to be going into the full squad with the confidence of having scored runs in Lions cricket behind me. There's a group of lads that are coming through at the moment and it's very exciting times for English cricket when you see the way the senior team are playing in the Champions Trophy.

"From your very first day hitting a cricket ball, playing for England is what you want to do and it will be a very proud moment. You want to play all three formats at the very highest level for as long as you can but I'm still a work in progress."

However, Livingstone was also at pains to stress he had not spent time thinking about playing for England since his performances began to draw attention last year.

"I just want to do my best for Lancashire and if this came, it came," he said. "I was never thinking about it happening. There's still a lot of hard work to be done but I hope I can move up into that environment and keep up the hard work. I've also tried not to change myself very much and I just hope I can go in and be the same as I am in county cricket."

News of Livingstone's selection also attracted praise from Lancashire.

"It's excellent news and everyone's delighted for him," said Lancashire first-team coach Glen Chapple. "Last year he played superbly well but this year he's looked better than that and at times he's looked so good he probably would have liked to have scored more runs. But his game looks in order and I'm pretty sure he's looking forward to the challenge of playing for England.

And slow left-armer, Stephen Parry, who has himself played T20 cricket for England and retains hopes of regaining his place, added his warm good wishes.

“It’s great to see our young lads getting involved and it’s nice to see Liam getting a call up early,” he said.

“He’s a class act and I just hope he can put a performance in and do himself justice.

"He’s got the confidence as we all know and he’s got a little bit of an aura about him as well. I hope he plays and I think he’ll be fine.”