Mark Anthony Taylor (born 27 October 1964) is a former Australian cricketer His debut was for New South Wales in 1985.
He retired from Test cricket on 2 February 1999. In 104 Test matches, he scored 7,525 runs with a batting average of 43.49, including 19 centuries and 40 fifties. He was also an excellent first slip – his 157 catches, at the time, a Test record (now held by Joe Root). In contrast to his predecessor Allan Border, who acquired the nickname 'Captain Grumpy', Taylor won plaudits for his always cheerful and positive demeanour. His successor, Steve Waugh, further honed the Australian team built by Border and Taylor and went on to set numerous records for victories as captain. Having been named Australian of the Year in 1999, he is now a cricket commentator for the Nine Network, and former Director of Cricket Australia.
Early years
The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor also enjoyed Rugby, alongside his main preference, cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsman from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England. he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales in 1987. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982–83. helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70.
International career
Test career
right|thumb|350px|Mark Taylor's career performance graph.
Solid form for NSW in 1988–89 resulted in Taylor's selection for his Test debut in the Fourth Test against the West Indies at the SCG, Taylor's safe catching at slip was also a factor in his selection. He made 25 and 3 in a winning team, then was run out twice in the Fifth Test. However, Taylor was overlooked for selection in the ODIs.
A year after his Test debut, Taylor was selected to make his ODI debut, which came on Boxing Day of 1989 against Sri Lanka. He made 11 as Australia won by 30 runs.
During the 1991–92 Australian season, Taylor batted consistently in a 4–0 series victory over India. He scored 94 and 35* in a ten-wicket win at Brisbane. His opening partner Marsh was dropped for the Fifth Test, so the selectors elevated Taylor to the vice-captaincy of the team. Over the next twelve months, a number of players were tried as Taylor's opening partner. scoring two and 16. Nevertheless, he had scored 422 runs at 46.89. He played in all three ODIs, scoring 138 runs at 46.00. His 94 in the first match was his highest score in ODIs to that point. with Moody having been dropped. Taylor was ineffective and failed to pass fifty in the first four Tests. having failed to make double figures in either innings. He had scored 170 runs at 24.29 for the series. He then scored 50 in the drawn Second Test and bowled for the first time at Test level, taking 0/15.
The problem of finding him a long-term partner was solved on the tour of England that followed. NSW batsman Michael Slater, who also grew up in Wagga Wagga, made his debut in the First Test of the 1993 Ashes series. In the First Test at Old Trafford, Taylor made 124 after an opening partnership of 128, as Australia managed only 289 after being sent in. before going on to a 179-run win.
This was followed by a stand of 260 at Lord's in the Second Test, with Taylor making 111. The partnership laid the platform for Australia's total of 4/632, This made him the first batsman to score centuries on Test debut against four countries. On his return for the Second Test at Cape Town, he scored 70 and ended the series with 97 runs at 24.25.
Captaincy
After the retirement of Allan Border, Taylor was appointed captain.
Frequently omitted from the ODI team due to slow scoring, Taylor missed the finals of the ODI series in Australia against South Africa. On the tour of South Africa, he missed three consecutive ODIs when tour selectors and fellow players Ian Healy and Steve Waugh voted him off the team.
Taylor started his ODI captaincy with two tournaments in Sharjah and Sri Lanka. Australia missed the finals in both tournaments, winning three of their six matches. After scoring 68* to guide his team to a nine-wicket win in the first match against Sri Lanka in Sharjah, Taylor's form tapered off, scoring only 64 more runs to end the two tournaments with a total of 132 runs at 33.00. To make matters worse, Australia's first-choice pace pairing of Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes missed the tour due to injury. The First Test at Karachi was a personal disaster for Taylor as he scored a pair, the first player in Test history to do so on his captaincy debut. Paceman Glenn McGrath then broke down in the middle of the match. Australia was in the box seat with Pakistan needing 56 runs with one wicket in hand, but lost by one wicket after Ian Healy missed a stumping opportunity and the ball went for the winning runs. Malik went on to make 237 as Pakistan made 537 and saved the Test. Australia again took a first innings lead in the Third Test, but could not force a result, Taylor ended the series with 106 runs at 26.50. Taylor followed up with 59 in an opening stand of 97 as Australia made 426 in the first innings to take the initiative in the First Test in Brisbane. Australia amassed a 259-run first innings lead, but Taylor, mindful of the Test match at Rawalpindi, became the first Australian captain since 1977–78 to not enforce the follow-on. Although heavily criticised as a conservative decision, Australia still won the match by 184 runs, Having scored the first win of his Test captaincy, Taylor led his team to a 295-run win in the Second Test. he defied a pitch that had begun to seam and swing after a shower and cloud cover as Australia narrowly avoided the follow on. In the final two Tests, he scored half-centuries as Australia won 3–1. However, Australia bounced back to win the Fifth Test by 329 runs, the largest margin of the series. Australia lost the ODI series which preceded the Tests 1–4, with Taylor making 152 runs at 30.40. After the Second Test was a rained-out draw, the West Indies beat Australia inside three days on a "green" Trinidad pitch in the Third Test. Australia regained the Frank Worrell Trophy with an innings victory in the Fourth Test at Jamaica, with Taylor taking the winning catch from the bowling of Shane Warne. Although he only managed 153 runs (at 25.50 average) for the series, Taylor held nine catches and his leadership was cited as a key factor in the result.
Controversy with Sri Lanka
This was followed by two and three-Test series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively in the 1995–96 Australian season. The Pakistan series began among a media circus when Salim Malik arrived with publicity focused on the bribery allegations which had surfaced a year earlier. Australia won the First Test in Brisbane by an innings in three and a half days, with Taylor contributing 69. In the Second Test at Bellerive Oval, Taylor scored 123 in the second innings to set up a winning total. In the Third Test in Sydney, he made 59 as Australia collapsed for 172 in the second innings and conceded the match. He ended the series with a healthy 338 runs at 67.60. The Tests were won 3–0 by the Australians with heavy margins of an innings, ten wickets and 148 runs respectively. Taylor's highlight being a 96 in the First Test at Perth as he compiled 159 runs at 39.75. After accusations of ball tampering were levelled against the tourists in the First Test, leading spinner Muttiah Muralitharan was no-balled seven times in the Second Test, Later in the match, stump microphones showed Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy alleging that portly Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga was feigning injury and calling for a runner because of his lack of physical fitness. In their first match together in Perth, the pair put on 189, with Taylor scoring 85. They put on another century stand in the second final, with Taylor scoring 82. Taylor scored heavily in the ODI tournament, with 423 runs at 42.30 with four half-centuries. Taylor made six as Australia started their campaign with a 97-run win over Kenya. He then made 59 in a century stand with Waugh as Australia defeated co-hosts India in Mumbai. Taylor scored 34 in a nine-wicket win over Zimbabwe, before scoring nine in a defeat to the West Indies in the last group match. Australia finished second in their group and faced New Zealand in the quarter-finals. Taylor made only 10 as Australia chased 289 for victory, but made a surprise tactic by sending in Shane Warne as a pinch hitter. Warne made 24 from 15 balls in a partnership with Waugh, to allow Australia to take the momentum and take victory by six wickets. Taylor managed only one in the semi-final as Australia staggered to 8/207 against the West Indies. Australia appeared to be heading out of the tournament when the Caribbean team reached 2/165, but a sudden collapse saw Australia win by six runs in the last over.
Australia managed to reach the final, where they met Sri Lanka. Taylor scored 74, Australia's first tournament after the World Cup was the Singer World Series in Sri Lanka. Taylor opted out of the tournament, and in his absence, Australia reached the final but lost by 50 runs to the hosts.
In 1996–97, Australia confirmed its ascendancy over the West Indies with a 3–2 series win, but Taylor endured a poor season with the bat and failed to pass 50 in nine innings. After scoring seven and 17 in the first two ODIs, Taylor dropped himself from the team for the remaining five matches.
The 1997 Ashes tour started poorly amid rumours that Taylor was on the verge of losing his place in the team. He batted ineffectively as Australia lost the one day series 0–3, scoring seven and 11, The team's erstwhile coach, Bob Simpson, said that Taylor's retention in the team in spite of his poor form was fostering resentment among the players and destabilising the team. Australia went on to win the Third, Fourth and Fifth Tests and retain the Ashes 3–2. Although Taylor made single figures in the three Tests following his century, he contributed 76 and 45 in the series-clinching Test at Nottingham. Taylor ended the series with 317 runs at 31.7. in favour of the aggressive Michael di Venuto. Tactically, ODI cricket was transformed by Sri Lanka's World Cup success, when it employed the highly aggressive opening pair of Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana.
At this time, Taylor was a central figure in a pay dispute between the players and the ACB, with a strike action threatened by the players. Taylor continued as Test captain and led the team to a 2–0 win over New Zealand. The first two matches were won by 186 runs and an innings, while the Third Test ended with Australia one wicket from victory after almost two days' play was washed out.
Taylor scored a century (112 on the first day of the First Test, and an unbeaten 66 in the Third Test, compiling 214 runs at 53.50 for the series.
On the 1998 tour of India, Elliott was dropped and Taylor reunited with Slater as the opening pair. Australia started well by taking a 71-run first-innings lead in the First Test at Chennai, but Sachin Tendulkar's unbeaten 155 put Australia under pressure to save the match on the final day. They were unable to resist and lost by 179 runs. Australia was crushed by an innings and 219 runs in the Second Test at Calcutta, Australia first series loss in four years and the first time that Australia had lost by an innings for five years. Thus, a series victory in India, which Australia had not achieved since 1969–70, remained elusive.
Record equalled
Later in 1998, Taylor led his team to Pakistan, where a convincing win in the First Test at Rawalpindi by an innings and 99 runs was Australia's first Test victory in the country for 39 years. Taylor then attended a court hearing investigating the claims of match-fixing made during the 1994 tour. In the Second Test at Peshawar, Taylor played the longest innings of his career. He batted two days to amass 334 *, equalling Sir Donald Bradman's Australian record set in 1930. In temperatures above 32 °C, Taylor survived two dropped catches before he had reached 25 and scored slowly on the first day. He shared a 206-run partnership with Justin Langer. The next day, he added 103 runs in a morning session extended from two to three hours. After the tea interval, he discarded his helmet in favour of a white sun hat, to deal with the extreme heat. He passed 311, eclipsing Bob Simpson's record score by an Australian captain. In the final over, Taylor equalled Bradman's Australian Test record when a shot to midwicket was barely stopped by Ijaz Ahmed, which reduced the scoring opportunity to a single run.
At the end of the day's play, Taylor was encouraged by the media, the public and his teammates to attempt to break Brian Lara's world record score of 375. An unusually large crowd turned out the following day in anticipation. However, Taylor declared the innings closed, opting to share the record with Bradman, and making the team's chances of winning the game paramount. He was widely praised for this decision. His fifteen hours batting in one Test was second only to Hanif Mohammad. The match ended in a draw, as did the Third Test, so Australia won the series and Taylor ended with 513 runs at 128.25 average. Two half centuries in the next two Tests in Perth and Adelaide saw Australia win by seven wickets and 205 runs respectively, After losing the Fourth Test by 12 runs after a dramatic final day collapse, Taylor headed to his home ground, the Sydney Cricket Ground, for what would be his final Test. Australia went on to win the Test by 98 runs and take the series 3–1. Taylor only scored two in both innings, but he broke Border's world record for the most Test catches. His catch in the first innings equalled Border's 156 and another in the second made him the sole owner of the record.
He also jointly holds the record in Test cricket (along with Ian Healy) of being the only cricketers to have been run out in both innings of a Test on two occasions.
Legacy
The improvement of the Australian team, begun during Border's tenure, continued under the captaincy of Taylor. After the defeat of the West Indies in 1995, Taylor's teams won home and away series against every Test team they played, with the exception of winning a series in India. Wisden wrote:
<blockquote>Taylor talked so well that he raised the standard of debate in Australia—and perhaps of cricket itself—in a way which was an example to all professional cricketers ... Border stopped Australia losing. Taylor made them into winners, the acknowledged if not official world champions of Test cricket.</blockquote>
Taylor made a concerted effort to decrease the amount of sledging committed by his team, a trait that brought criticism of Australian teams during other eras. In total, he captained the team in 50 Tests, winning 26 and losing 13, a success rate unmatched in the previous fifty years except for Don Bradman and Viv Richards.
Test cricket centuries
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+Test centuries scored by Mark Taylor
!
!Score
!Opponents
!Venue
!
!
!
|-
| 1
! scope="row" | 136
|| || Headingley, Leeds || || Australia won ||
|-
| 2
! scope="row" | 219
|| || Trent Bridge, Nottingham || || Australia won ||
|-
| 3
! scope="row" | 164
|| || Brisbane Cricket Ground || || Drawn ||
|-
| 4
! scope="row" | 108
|| || Bellerive Oval, Hobart || || Australia won ||
|-
| 5
! scope="row" | 101
|| || Melbourne Cricket Ground || || Drawn ||
|-
| 6
! scope="row" | 101*
|| || Sydney Cricket Ground || || Australia won ||
|-
| 7
! scope="row" | 144
|| ||Antigua Recreation Ground, St John's || || Australia won ||
|-
| 8
! scope="row" | 100
|| || Adelaide Oval || || Australia won ||
|-
| 9
! scope="row" | 124
|| || Old Trafford, Manchester || || Australia won ||
|-
| 10
! scope="row" | 111
|| || Lord's, London || || Australia won ||
|-
| 11
! scope="row" | 142*
|| || WACA Ground, Perth || || Drawn ||
|-
| 12
! scope="row" | 170
|| || Melbourne Cricket Ground || || Drawn ||
|-
| 13
! scope="row" | 113
|| || Sydney Cricket Ground || || Drawn ||
|-
| 14
! scope="row" | 123
|| || Bellerive Oval, Hobart || || Australia won ||
|-
| 15
! scope="row" | 129
|| || Edgbaston Cricket Ground, Birmingham || || Australia lost ||
|-
| 16
! scope="row" | 112
|| || Brisbane Cricket Ground || || Australia won ||
|-
| 17
! scope="row" | 169*
|| || Adelaide Oval || || Drawn ||
|-
| 18
! scope="row" | 102*
|| || M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru || || Australia won ||
|-
| 19
! scope="row" | 334*
|| || Arbab Niaz Stadium, Peshawar || || Drawn ||
|}
One Day International centuries
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|+ODI centuries scored by Mark Taylor
!No.
!Score
!Opponents
!Venue
!Date
!Result
!Ref
|-
| 1
! scope="row" | 105
|| || M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru || || Lost ||
|}
Career best performances
{| class="wikitable"
|-
!|
! colspan="4"|Batting
|-
!
!Score
!Fixture
!Venue
!Season
|-
|Test
| style="text-align:center;"|334*
|Pakistan v Australia
|Arbab Niaz Stadium, Peshawar
| style="text-align:center;"|1998
|-
|ODI
| style="text-align:center;"|105
|India v Australia
|M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore
| style="text-align:center;"|1996
|-
|FC
| style="text-align:center;"|334*
|Pakistan v Australia
|Arbab Niaz Stadium, Peshawar
| style="text-align:center;"|1998
|-
|LA
| style="text-align:center;"|105
|India v Australia
|M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore
| style="text-align:center;"|1996
|}
Retirement
Taylor retired from professional cricket in early 1999 after the Ashes series. On Australia Day, he was named the Australian of the Year. He was awarded an Australian Sports Medal in 2000 and a Centenary Medal in 2001. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2002 and made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2003. In 2011, he was inducted into the Cricket Hall of Fame by the CA.
He is now a commentator for Channel Nine for 21 years. Despite the network losing the TV rights in April 2018, Taylor re-signed for another three years to give his expert analysis on the Ashes 2019, 2019 Cricket World Cup & 2020 T20 World Cup and as a digital contributor.
He mainly commentates on One Day International and Test matches in Australia until the network's final year of cricket telecasts, so he can now spend more time with his family. He used to also appear on The Cricket Show with Simon O'Donnell, and is a spokesman for Fujitsu air-conditioners. He also commentates for radio.
Taylor is patron of the Mark Taylor Shield Cricket competition run for NSW Catholic Primary schools in and around the Sydney region. On 6 November 2011, Waitara Oval, the home of the Northern District Cricket Club, had its name formally changed to Mark Taylor Oval, to honour its former First Grade captain and life member.
In October 2015, The Primary Club of Australia announced that Mark Taylor had accepted the role of Twelfth Man and Patron following the passing of their former Patron, Richie Benaud OBE. He also became Director of Cricket Australia, and commissioned a replacement cap for Benaud. Benaud died before he could receive it, so the cap was presented to his wife.