Famous Cricketers No 88 - Herbert Wilfred Taylor

Herbert Wilfred Taylor Herbert Wilfred Taylor was born at Durban on the 5th May 1889. He was the third son of Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Taylor snr. and Anne Matilda (nee Phillips) and brother of Daniel Taylor jnr. Educated at Durban High School and Michaelhouse College in Durban he came under the scrutiny of George Cox from Sussex who was coaching there at the time. A right hand batsman he soon developed a solid defence, his play on the back-foot being exemplary which was imperative on the matting wickets which prevailed in the Union, and he possessed a variety of attacking shots excelling with the drive, cut and leg-side placement. He came into the Natal team in the 1909/10 season and his first match was against the touring M.C.C. side where he had the good fortune to make 55 in his first innings and double figures in the second where he became one of Jack Hobbs victims. His second season was again fruitful and he averaged over 42 making his first century against Griqualand West. It was no surprise looking back today to see that he was picked for the 1912 tour to England though he himself rated himself lucky to be included. He tells how he had been told that if he did not make a decent score in a trial match he would be left out of the side so he proceeded to make 90 odd and got in at the expense of G.V.Tapscott who had come up from Kimberley made a brilliant hundred and was then told he was too young and his time would come. Although the tour which included the triangular series with Australia was a disaster from the South African point of view, he fully maintained his growing reputation by making over a thousand runs at a decent average. One would feel that a team containing the elder Nourse, Aubrey Faulkner, L.J.Tancred and S.J.Snooke might have done much better but the weather was dreadful and the bowling was very weak, the great ‘googlie’ bowlers of the early 1900’s not being available apart from Schwarz and Gordon White who took only eighteen wickets each and it was left to S.J.Pegler who took 189 wickets, Faulkner himself and to a lesser extent C.P.Carter to try to cause much trouble to the batsmen they were opposed to. Leaving out E.P.Nupen the medium pace swing bowler was very much the worst decision ever made by the South African selectors at this time as the English wickets would seem to have been made for him. Returning home Taylor reappeared for Natal and in his first match of the season he made his highest score 250 not out against the Transvaal at Johannesburg. Taylor was now only 23 years of age but when the M.C.C. team arrived in the Union in 1913 he had been selected as captain, had to open the innings and combat the strength of the M.C.C. side and the remarkable bowling of Sidney Barnes whose success on the matting wickets was as great as the mastery shown by Hobbs while batting. Taylor however stood firm and fully justified the complimentary remarks made about him in England in 1912. Apart from the second innings of the first test where after making 109, his first test century, he made only 8 he reached double figures in every innings thereafter and averaged more than 50 runs per innings. His play against Barnes was immaculate countering every effort by probably the best bowler in the world at that time to dismiss him cheaply. His footwork was without fault and his play on the back foot being so good he was able to deal with anything the bowler could produce. Altogether this season with all matches being against the M.C.C. he averaged 68.66 making over 800 runs in 14 innings. Sadly the Great War now intervened and Taylor, who had married Evelyn Lindsay Dowlling in 1915 joined the Royal Field Artillery and the Royal Flying Corp which was the forerunner of the Royal Air Force and he was awarded the military cross for cutting wire on the battlefield under fire. After the War he stayed in England for a time and played Rugby football for Blackheath. He also turned out for Lionel Robinson’s eleven against the touring Australian Imperial Forces team. Back home for the 1920/21 season he emulated his feat of 1910/11 by again making a hundred in his first match against the Orange Free State. The Australians toured South Africa in the 1921/22 season with the fearsome opening attack of J.M.Gregory and E.A.McDonald which in 1919 had caused so much a problem in England as it had been probably the first time that such a fast combination had opened the bowling in first class cricket the norm being a fast bowler at one end and a and slow bowler at the other. Taylor was unhindered by this type of attack and maintained his reputation making over 3