IPL 2021: It will be an opportunity to prepare for the T20 World Cup, says Delhi Capitals batsman Sam Billings

AHMEDABAD: England batsman Sam Billings has said that there is a healthy competition for places in the Delhi Capitals' squad and he accepted that he might just get limited opportunities in this year's Indian Premier League (IPL).

Billings was picked up by Delhi Capitals in this year's players' auction for his base price of Rs 2 crore and now he would be looking to be on the field with the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin, Shreyas Iyer, and Rishabh Pant.

"You look at the squad that Delhi has, and especially the overseas options: you could go with any combination and it would be a successful one. The competition for places is phenomenal: they obviously got to the final last year, so game time might be limited, but it comes back to the point of preparing for a World Cup and giving myself the best chance in these conditions to prepare for that," ESPNcricinfo quoted Billings as saying.

The right-handed batsman also said he would learn a lot by facing the likes of Ashwin and Axar Patel in the nets.

"Facing those two spinners in the nets is one of the great things about the IPL, and other franchise competitions. If you face these guys day in, day out in testing conditions, you're going to get better -- it's impossible not to. That's a huge plus point... I'll be writing a few notes about a few different cricketers that I see about," said Billings.

Talking about how this year's IPL will be the perfect preparation for T20 World Cup, Billings said: "Fingers crossed, it'll be perfect preparation. It's really exciting, cricket coming up. I like to work on the next thing and really focus my energy on this series before we move onto the next one, but the big picture for me, the strategy was always to give myself the best chance of being selected in the World Cup at the end of the year."

The IPL Governing Council on Sunday announced the schedule for Indian Premier League 2021 to be held in India across six venues from April 9. Defending champions Mumbai Indians will take on Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in Chennai in the tournament opener. Runners-up Delhi Capitals will lock horns against Chennai Super Kings on April 10 in Mumbai.