TALES OF A FORMER CRICKETER
Bruce Taylor sits in his armchair in the front room of his Upper Hutt house talking cricket. The memories of a remarkable career flood back. Sometimes, tearful ones.
His wife of 15 years, Annie, offers a warm welcome and keeps a close watch. Their beloved dog, Jess, rarely leaves Taylor’s side during our visit.
His wheelchair is nearby, and Taylor’s grey trackpants cover the stump on his right leg, which was amputated at the knee four years ago after heart problems caused circulation issues.
For a former swashbuckling allrounder, still the only cricketer to achieve the rare feat of a century and five wickets on test debut (against India at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens in 1965), the lack of mobility stings. But the 77-year-old knows it could have been worse.
‘‘They gave me a femoral bypass and there were no improvements. So the surgeon gave me the option: either lose your life with gangrene or we chop it off. It wasn’t an easy decision but I’m still here,’’ Taylor says of the surgery in March 2016.
That’s when the New Zealand Cricket Players’ Association, which oversees the Cricketers’ Trust, came in. If Taylor had his way, CPA boss Heath Mills would be up for a knighthood, along with his staff, for their support of former players doing it tough.
‘‘I was sitting here not long after [the surgery], 2-3 weeks, and I looked out the window and there’s Rachel [Harris, of the CPA] pulled up in the car taking this scooter out of the boot. It was a big surprise.
‘‘I’d be in big strife if they hadn’t come to my help for different things. The mobility scooter, and they put a ramp up. They’re always there if you need them. Frankly we’d have struggled without their help.’’
Taylor tried an artificial leg but it never felt comfortable, the mobility scooter suffices for rare trips out of the house.
Former test opener, national selector and Wellington coach Bruce Edgar, a trustee of the Cricketers’ Trust, suggests our visit to check in on Taylor and reminisce about his career. His mind remains sharp but his health fluctuates.
One topic is off limits, but can’t avoid mention as part of the Taylor story: he served a year in jail in 1993-94 after taking $368,000 from Dunedin’s John McGlashan College to fund a gambling habit, when working at the school.
Cricket never turned its back on Taylor. The former national selector who helped pick New Zealand’s 1992 Cricket World Cup squad was soon back coaching and joined Wellington’s selection panel in the early 2000s. But his active involvement with the sport ended soon after.
‘‘I got to the stage where I felt perhaps I’d done enough for cricket and I wanted time to myself.’’
Taylor returned to the Basin Reserve on October 30, for the first time since 2017 when he attended his last live match, the test against South Africa and a CPA function for former players.
It was a sombre visit, the memorial service for former captain John Reid one of his closest cricketing friends, along with the late Bert Sutcliffe, Richard Collinge (best man at Taylor and Annie’s wedding), Barry Sinclair and Bryan Yuile. Some of Taylor’s former team-mates are gone, others are unwell.
‘‘We’re all getting old,’’ he says. Taylor knew his co-selector from 1992, the widely admired Ross Dykes, was seriously ill, and died since our interview took place.
Reid was New Zealand captain when 21-year-old Taylor, from Timaru, was picked for his first tour after just three first-class matches. Taylor recalls driving to and from Christchurch to watch a test against Pakistan, knowing the India tour squad was to be named but with no expectations.
‘‘I got together with a couple of mates and had a few beers, decided to go home and was met by my mother at the corner of the house saying ‘you’re going to India’. I said ‘you’ve got to be bloody joking’. That afternoon I was driven back to Christchurch to get outfitted, the first time I’d met JR or Bert, who were my idols, and two weeks later I’m playing in a team with them. It was pretty memorable.’’
Taylor then takes a deep breath, pauses and the tears start to flow.
‘‘The only big regret I have about my career . . . was that my father never lived to see it. He died at 49 in 1963, two years before. He only stopped playing a couple of years before that, and we played against each other [for the Star club in Timaru].’’
On that first India tour, Taylor wasn’t picked for the first test, then was a late callup on the morning of the second test when Sinclair fell ill. The famed Eden Gardens was heaving – all bamboo and canvas in Taylor’s recollection – with a 30,000-strong crowd cramming every vantage point.
Scoring a century and taking five wickets in an innings has only been achieved 32 times in test cricket, and just once by a debutant: B.R Taylor who hit 105 in 158 minutes then snared 5-86 after being thrown the new ball.
Sutcliffe scored 151 not out as the pair added a memorable 163, each guiding the other to their respective milestones. Taylor, batting No 8, took some calming down.
‘‘He [Sutcliffe] tried to keep me level headed because I had a tendency to have a swing and go for the big one every now and again. He said ‘for Christ’s sake don’t do that, if you do it again I’ll….’. And next ball I hit into the stand. He said ‘hmm, good advice’.’’
Taylor was picked as a batsman, but when India took guard the ball started misbehaving and the lively seamer, who would generate bounce and movement with his high arm action, caused carnage.
Fast forward to Eden Park, Auckland, on February 27, 1969, and a West Indies team led by the great Garry Sobers, including Wes Hall, Lance Gibbs and a young Clive Lloyd were in town. That afternoon, word got around Auckland that Taylor, again batting No 8, was hitting out.
A then-student at nearby Mt Albert Grammar recalls setting off excitedly to watch Taylor’s innings, only to arrive when it was all over. Test cricket just didn’t move at that pace, back in the day. Taylor blasted an 83-ball century and ended with 124, including five sixes.
It was New Zealand’s fastest test century for 36 years until Daniel Vettori got an 82-baller against Zimbabwe. Taylor’s knock still sits seventh on the New Zealand all-time list.
‘‘It all happened so damn quick. I think I got 50 in 30 minutes. The first three balls from either Gibbs or Hall, I put through the covers for four. I thought ‘jeez this is not bad’. And I just kept going. It was the way I liked to play, if I got on a roll I liked to stay on it.
‘‘It did mean a lot, considering the opposition. I went from 38 to 50 in two balls, I straight drove Sobers into the end of the big stand twice in a row. Then when I was on 99 I tried to fiddle a single and faced five balls and never got bat to them. I thought ‘this is not much fun’. I thought if it’s up, it’s gone, and it hit the middle and went for six, so that was my hundred.’’
Taylor and Sobers became friends and the great West Indies cricketer would visit and play golf together in Alexandra. Then on the 1972 West Indies tour, Taylor and Mark Burgess were picked to play in Sobers’ world double-wicket benefit tournament in Jamaica.
‘‘I was pretty chuffed to be picked for that,’’ Taylor said.
On that Caribbean tour, all five tests were drawn and batsmen plundered, notably Glenn Turner and Terry Jarvis who put on a New Zealand record opening stand of 387 in Guyana. Taylor averaged 38 with the bat, and excelled with the ball, taking 27 wickets at 18. The next highest wicket-taker from either side was spinner Hedley Howarth, with 14.
‘‘I wasn’t picked for the first test [at Kingston], they picked Murray Webb and he got slaughtered on one of the flattest pitches I’d ever seen. Lawrence Rowe got 200 and 100 and Turns got 250-odd. Maybe I was lucky I didn’t play in that one. I played in the others and the pitches did a bit, particularly Barbados. Sobers won the toss and elected to bat and we looked at each other because it had a bit of green on it. They were all out just after lunch for 130-odd.’’
After a lean tour of England the next year, Taylor’s test career was over. It spanned just eight years and 30 matches. He averaged 20.4 with the bat, and with the ball snared 111 wickets at 26.6. Of the 14 New Zealanders to top 100 test wickets, Taylor’s average is third-lowest after Neil Wagner (26.3) and the great Richard Hadlee (22.3).
Taylor says he became disillusioned with the New Zealand Cricket hierarchy, but later had a memorable first-class finale with a young Edgar alongside. At age 36, at the Hutt Recreation Ground, Taylor was part of the Wellington team that beat West Indies on their acrimonious 1979-80 tour, including a visiting bowling attack of Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding and Joel Garner.
‘‘They weren’t very happy about it,’’ Taylor recalls. ‘‘It’s quite ironic that game. Chats [Ewen Chatfield] got 13 wickets, Stu Cater got seven and I didn’t get one and I felt it was one of the best spells I ever bowled. I kept beating the bat of Haynes and Greenidge all day.’’
Edgar concurs, saying Taylor was a remarkable bowler to watch with his combination of swing, seam and bounce. He reckons Taylor would have been a devastating Twenty20 player, too. Taylor watched the Caribbean Premier League and Indian Premier League in recent months and marvelled at the bowling skill of Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah and Kagiso Rabada.
‘‘I enjoy it, there’s some good players coming through and most sides have good quicks. Most of these bowlers are on a hiding to nothing with these short boundaries and big bats.
‘‘Rashid Khan, the leggie, I could watch him all day. There’s three good quicks around the world: Boult, Bumrah and Rabada, they’d get into any side. And [Quinton] de Kock, behind the sticks, he’d play in any team.’’
Boult and his Black Caps team-mates contribute to the Cricketers’ Trust, which in the past two years made distributions of well over $50,000 to more than 10 past players.
Edgar said the Trust, established in 2007, helped past players and their families by paying for medical bills and treatments, medical equipment and related charges, funeral expenses and other costs that may arise at difficult times. This support structure filled the void from their former playing days, Edgar says.
‘‘The current players know they are fairly well paid and they understand the sacrifice that the past players have given in order for them to carry on doing what they’re doing.’’
Taylor is eternally grateful, saying when he retired there was nothing but a handshake for him and countless others. Now, at least, there’s some tangible way for the cricket fraternity to say thanks for the memories, and the contribution to cricket in New Zealand.
‘‘He [Bert Sutcliffe] tried to keep me level headed because I had a tendency to have a swing and go for the big one every now and again. He said ‘for Christ’s sake don’t do that, if you do it again I’ll….’. And next ball I hit into the stand. He said ‘hmm, good advice’.’’
Bruce Taylor