An emotional Ross Taylor yesterday paid tribute to his mentor, the late Martin Crowe, following a superb century that put New Zealand in sight of a series sweep against the West Indies in Hamilton, New Zealand.
Taylor equaled the New Zealand record of 17 Test centuries, held by Crowe and Kane Williamson, and was unbeaten on 107 when New Zealand declared their second innings at 291-8 in the second Test.
The West Indies, set a daunting 444-run target, were 30-2 after eight overs at stumps and staring at a second loss after their innings defeat in the first Test.
Photo: AFP
A teary-eyed Taylor attributed his success to Crowe, the former New Zealand captain who died last year from lymphoma at the age of 53.
“We had some good nights with Hogan [Crowe] over some red wine. Talking about my batting and lot of it probably not positive. It came from a good place and I guess that’s why I’m here today,” he said.
Taylor said before the Test that Crowe wanted him to break his record.
“Seventeen is the benchmark that Hogan wanted me to get to and beat, but he said, also, carry on and don’t stop there,” he said.
Taylor had a near chanceless innings and when he was dropped by Shai Hope on 35, he said that became motivation to press on.
“I said: ‘Let’s make it pay.’ Sometimes you go through different parts of your career and you go ‘Damnit’ and you go through a bit of a lull, and that was the first thing I said to myself when it happened. Very fortunate,” he said. “I did hit it pretty hard though. Sometimes when you get dropped you say: ‘Oh no,’ but I was trying to convince myself I hit that pretty hard.”
Miguel Cummins led a feisty West Indies bowling attack, at times reminiscent of an earlier era when they had bowlers with serious venom.
Most of the New Zealand batsmen were hurried up by a salvo of short balls.
“A lot of the batters coming in were under pressure straight away, which is never easy as a batsman,” Taylor said.
Although the West Indies bowlers produced credible figures, batting coach Toby Radford was disappointed to lose two wickets before stumps.
“Obviously, it’s going to be stiff task, a couple of days to bat out, but we would have liked to go in with no wickets down, obviously,” Radford said, adding that they would not bat for time in an attempt to avoid defeat.
“You don’t just want to be batting to survive; you’ve still got to put bad balls away and still look positive at the crease and move positively, so [we will] go out there with an intent to score runs still,” he added.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later