Taylor on Monday went past Stephen Fleming’s career tally of 7,172 runs to become the highest run-getter for New Zealand in the longest format.
New Zealand's Ross Taylor plays a shot next to Australia's Tim Paine (C) and Marnus Labuschagne on the second day of the second cricket Test match at the MCG in Melbourne on December 27, 2019. (Photo by WILLIAM WEST / AFP)
Ross Taylor, who on Monday went past Stephen Fleming’s career tally of 7,172 runs to become the highest run-getter for New Zealand in the longest format, credited late mentor Martin Crowe for influencing and shaping his red-ball aspirations.
Taylor achieved the feat in the third and final Test against Australia that Kiwis lost by 279 runs at the Sydney Cricket Ground, losing the series 3-0.
According to Taylor, he believed in himself as a white-ball batsman, but Crowe helped boosted his confidence to become a serious Test batsman.
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“My goal was to play one Test match,” Taylor said as quoted by ICC. “I guess it’s an emotional time because my mentor Martin Crowe, that was one of the goals he put down for me was to be New Zealand’s highest Test run-scorer. To be honest, I didn’t believe him, but I’d have loved for him to be here and help celebrate.
“When I first played for New Zealand, I’d had a pretty decent one-day career and only scored three or four first-class hundreds and Twenty20 was just coming through.
“I always thought I was good enough to play one-day cricket, but Test cricket was something I was never quite sure if I was good enough. That’s why I’d seek Martin’s help to become a better player than the raw, gay abandon player that I was as a youngster.”
It was in February 2019 that Taylor had gone past Fleming in the ODI run-getters list to become the batsman with most ODI runs for New Zealand under his belt. He, in fact, has the most runs in all international formats for the Kiwi team, including 39 fifties and 88 half-centuries.
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