Famous Cricketers No 99 - Bob Taylor

dismissals in a match (all caught) against Hampshire in 1963 and he twice had seven in an innings (all caught), the only wicket-keeper to achieve this feat more than once. These statistics give a correct indication of Taylor’s ability to accept a remarkably large percentage of chances that go his way, but he gives pleasure to the spectator to a wider degree. It is a joy to see a difficult “legside” take or to watch a throw from the deep disappear into his gloves with scarcely a sound. He is a great believer, too, in “tidying up” inaccurate returns. You do not see him glaring, hands on hips motionless, like some less talented practitioners of the art.” The international career of Bob Taylor was closely linked to that of Alan Knott. There is little doubt that Bob Taylor would have been the regular England wicket-keeper but for Knott’s greater ability as a batsman. As Christopher Martin-Jenkins said in his book World Cricketers published in 1996:- “Of all the good and bad repercussions of the ‘Packer revolution’, the happiest was that this perfect craftsman and ideal sportsman suddenly acquired a status which his exceptional ability warranted. Such a perfectionist as a wicket-keeper that he gave up the captaincy of his county the moment that he felt he was not keeping wicket as well as he could (though no one else had noticed any decline), Bob Taylor managed to be at once as keen as mustard and totally undemonstrative. A capable, orthodox batsman, lacking any great power of stroke, he was second choice to Alan Knott for almost a decade. He toured Australia with five England sides (and once with a Rest of the World side), the West Indies, Pakistan, India, and New Zealand. He had played just one Test in New Zealand in 1971 before his chance came to become England’s regular ‘keeper in Pakistan in 1977/78. He seized that opportunity unerringly and was a valuable member of the England team which defeated Australia 5-1 in 1978/79. At Adelaide England were in severe danger of losing the fifth Test when Taylor and his Derbyshire colleague, Geoff Miller, rescued England with a stand of 135, Taylor going on to make 97, equalling his highest score at that time. He was twice discarded by England after a relatively disappointing tour of Australia in 1979/80, amazingly enough after taking ten catches, seven in one innings, and scoring a priceless 43, in the Jubilee Test in Bombay. He re-established himself as England’s wicket-keeper until the end of the 1983/84 tour, and as the senior member of the side was always ready to help the younger players and then announced his retirement from first-class cricket at the end of the 1984 season.” In 1986 he made a welcome, but brief and unexpected reappearance in Test cricket when, attending the Lord’s Test as a media relations officer for Cornhill Insurance, he took over the gloves in New Zealand’s first innings as substitute for the injured Bruce French, who after being hit on the head by a ball from Richard Hadlee was taken to hospital. At the request of Mike Gatting and with the agreement of J.V.Coney, the New Zealand captain, Taylor kept for the remainder of the day but no chances were offered to him. This match is not recorded in his statistics but in the innings concerned the wicket-keeping was shared by four players: C.W.J.Athey (first two overs), Bob Taylor (overs 3 to 76), R.J.Parks (overs 77 to 140) and B.N.French (the final ball). When Bob played in his first Test match, which was at Christchurch in New Zealand in 1971 he had already been on one MCC tour to the Far East in 1969/70 when no Test matches were played. In the space of roughly a month matches were played at Colombo, Negri Sembilan, Singapore, Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Kowloon, but only one was first-class. In 1971/72 he toured Australia with the so-called World XI, and the following winter he should have gone to India and Pakistan with MCC but an ear infection prevented this at the last minute. In February 1973 he had an operation for mastoid. 7