Fulton hails ‘vintage’ Taylor
Peter Fulton was there when Ross Taylor first played a major part in a one-day international run chase, and he was there when the Black Caps set the record they broke this week.
Those both happened in the space of a few days in early 2007, the first against Australia at Eden Park in Auckland, the second down the road at Seddon Park in Hamilton.
On Wednesday, Taylor scored his fourth century in a successful run chase – an unbeaten 112 to go with with the unbeaten 181 and the 118 he scored against England in early 2018, in Dunedin and Hamilton, and the 117 he scored against the Aussies all those years ago.
Fulton made an unbeaten 76 himself in that match to finish the chase of 338, then made 51 as they chased down 347 in Hamilton two days later – a record that wasn’t surpassed until Wednesday night in the same city, when the Black Caps made 348 against India.
His role with the team now is as the batting coach, and as the team arrived in Auckland ahead of tomorrow’s second ODI, he said he saw similarities between the Taylor of 2007 and the Taylor of 2020.
‘‘He’d played a few games and done OK and showed a bit of promise [in 2007], then he got a big hundred against a pretty handy bowling attack.
‘‘That was a special knock that day in a similar situation. When you watch that innings last night, it probably wasn’t too far off vintage Ross Taylor.’’
Reflecting on what made Taylor such an impressive ODI batsman,
Fulton pointed to his top two inches. ‘‘He’s obviously an extremely talented batsman, but he’s pretty strong mentally,’’ he said.
‘‘I know he was disappointed in the Twenty20 series, that he wasn’t able to win a couple of games for the team – I think he prides himself on being the guy that comes through in those situations.’’
The Black Caps came into the
ODI series having lost the last three Twenty20 matches against India from near-unlosable positions, needing three of five balls, seven off six, and 57 off 54 respectively.
To then come out and make the 348 they needed with 11 balls to spare – completing the 10th-highest ODI run chase of all time – was quite the turnaround.
Fulton said the process of figuring out how to go about the chase involved several factors.
‘‘We looked a bit at the way India played. We wanted to be 180 or thereabouts after 30 overs, and if we could be no more than three wickets down, we knew we’d give ourselves a chance later on to push on and be pretty aggressive.
‘‘It was nice that it panned out that way and I think a lot of credit goes to the openers, because if you lose wickets in the first 10 overs, it makes a run chase like that almost impossible.’’
Taylor had good support, first from Henry Nicholls, who made 78, then from stand-in captain Tom Latham, who made 69 off just 48 balls, one of his more explosive ODI knocks.
‘‘For the captain to come in in that situation and take the game by the scruff of the neck, that was nice to see,’’ Fulton said of Latham.