Taylor scores too many runs to be put out to pasture
You have to wonder if he is comfortable in the NZ Cricket environment, considering most of the old regime are still there.
You get the feeling that if Ross Taylor sloped off quietly into exile, many at the top of our cricket pyramid would be happy.
He always seems to be hung out, as if he is still paying penance after his ousting as captain in 2012.
Taylor has always comported himself in an honourable way from the time I knew him in Manawatu, and considering his service to New Zealand cricket, he deserves respect in equal measure.
You have to wonder if he is comfortable in the NZ Cricket environment, considering most of the old regime are still there.
There will also be a clique of Brendon Mccullum cronies within the Black Caps who haven’t forgotten the battle lines of that 2012 fiasco which was so unworthy of NZ Cricket.
In January, Taylor was blocked by chief exec David White from playing one game in the Big Bash with the Melbourne Renegades for ‘‘player welfare’’ reasons, when Colin Munro and Ish Sodhi were released.
Taylor had already been dropped from the NZ Twenty20 side for the series against Bangladesh.
A week ago, he was left out of the T20 team to play South Africa. Given the thrashing the Proteas dealt out, good one to miss.
NZ Cricket are not standing in the way of our nine Caps chaps off to earn mega rupees in the Indian Premier League (IPL) in May and no doubt will expect Taylor to skipper the Black Caps in a oneday series in Ireland.
NZ Cricket doesn’t want to force the players to shun the lotto money in the IPL. But they did when Taylor asked for just one day at the MCG.
The Black Caps claim they had repeatedly given him reasons for his Twenty20 omission. If so, then it was probably horse manure because he is one of only two world-class batsmen New Zealand possesses.
Instead, they threw in a bunch of rookies including one who hadn’t even played for the B team, known as New Zealand A, and got royally reamed.
Taylor is verging on his 33rd birthday and might not be as supersonic in the field as he once was, but he usually fields in close anyway.
It seems he has done his dash in the IPL where he has played for the Royal Challengers Bangalore, Rajasthan Royals, Delhi Daredevils and Pune Warriors. While there, he was renowned for swatting spinners to the rope and when Rajasthan shelled out $1.32 million for him in 2011, he was the first million-dollar Kiwi.
English county Sussex have been happy to re-sign Taylor for their T20 Blast after he averaged 56.28 for them last season. He will be back at Hove in July, unless NZ Cricket find a way to keep him in irons.
He can afford to beggar off for good if he chooses. Then we would be bleating when they replace him with some geezer who can’t catch up with the ball.
Move over Mclean Park
So now we know Napier’s Mclean Park was closer to a swamp than a cricket ground after its one-dayer with Australia was washed out.
Which is ironic after the years when Palmerston North’s Fitzherbert Park was struck off the first-class roster because it wasn’t up to warrant-of-fitness standard.
Where Napier was praised to the hilt, Fitzherbert was castigated, partly because practice pitches weren’t available on the ground, even if they were nearby at Ongley Park.
But now we know players at Napier had to traipse over to nearby Nelson Park for their throwdowns. Manawatu could easily put nets in at the end of their grassed carpark at Fitzherbert.
Mystery attendances again
No one is any the wiser about how many spectators attended the NZ Grand Prix meeting at Manfeild last weekend.
We were told there were more than last year, whatever that means.
But since we have never been furnished crowd attendances at Manfeild, who is to know? And yet they use the same ticket-scanning systems as at Arena Manawatu where crowd figures are available during rugby games.
Attendances are apparently crucial to retaining the NZGP at Manfeild.
Apparently more than 60 per cent came from out of Manawatu. The meeting does fill a few hotels and brings in airport landing charges from the likes of Nelson Piquet’s private jet.
Hampton Downs mogul Tony Quinn, who covets the NZGP, has been reported as saying Government money has been thrown at Manfeild ‘‘when it should be spent on better things’’.
Maybe he was referring to the suspensory loans from the two councils which would only be called on if the place went bust. Or maybe he has heard of the regional package which includes bid money from the Central Economic Development Agency, which is backed by the two councils, and more from motorsport patrons.