Online Reporter
Zimpapers Sports Hub
FORMER Zimbabwe captain Brendan Taylor, serving a three-and-a-half year ban for breaching the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) anti-corruption code, is eyeing an international comeback when his sanction ends in July.
Taylor (39) had initially considered a move into coaching but has been convinced to resume his playing career by Zimbabwe Cricket’s (ZC) Managing Director Givemore Makoni, with a view to playing the 2027 ODI World Cup, which Zimbabwe will co-host with South Africa and Namibia.
Taylor will be eligible to play again on July 25, this year.
“I still want to play and I believe I could make an impact as a player. I look at where I’m physically and mentally and if I didn’t feel I could do it, I wouldn’t bother. Givemore has really supported me on this.
“He sort of shut down the coaching role for now and said, ‘Can you play and try to push yourself up until the 2027 World Cup?’ Granted, I’ll be 41 then but with sobriety, I’m living my truest form,” Taylor told ESPNCricinfo.
Taylor admitted to drug and alcohol addiction problems at the same time he revealed an approach by match-fixers to spot fix after they filmed him using cocaine.
He was threatened with the video being made public if he did not co-operate with them. Instead of going through with the fix, Taylor abruptly retired from international cricket in September 2021 and did not reveal the reasons.
He only reported the incident to the ICC four months later and made the story public in January 2022.
At that point, Taylor also checked himself into a rehabilitation centre in Nyanga and spent 90 days there, with one other patient and a sponsor who “showed me a new way to live”.
He has since been clean and has started a private coaching facility at his home as well as, more recently, a gradual return to training.
The conditions of his sanction mean Taylor cannot play any officially recognised cricket or train with domestic or international sides. Instead, he has been using facilities at an elite independent school, St John’s College in Harare, often twice a day.
“They’ve got some great grass nets and I spend a lot of time in the indoor high-performance centre there. I get in there nice and early, and I come back in the afternoon and do it all again and push myself.
“There’s lots of work to do, but I feel like I’m there. I’m not far off. I’ve been doing some batting, and I need to incorporate some fielding and some keeping work because I’ve got four months to go,” he said.
Although “it would have been great to be able to”, Taylor will not be cleared to play by the time of Zimbabwe’s Test in England in May — their first against that opposition in more than two decades. But, he hopes to be in the plans for a home series against New Zealand in August.
That will be followed by Zimbabwe’s hosting of the Africa Regional Qualifiers for next year’s T20 World Cup in September, though Taylor feels he has some work to do on his T20 game, where he has a strike rate of 123.96.
“I see myself definitely playing Tests and ODIs. With T20s, that’s probably something I would have to really try and sharpen myself up at. But I look forward to that,” he said.
He added: “Having a home World Cup is quite special and we’ve had some heartache over these last few World Cups so hopefully we can turn that around.”
Should his comeback be successful, Taylor will be the fourth player in the Zimbabwe side in his late 30s, after Test and ODI captain Craig Ervine (39), T20I captain Sikandar Raza (38), and long-serving all-rounder Sean Williams (also 38).
Ultimately it’s the feeling of having unfinished business that is calling Taylor back to playing.
“I wish I had offered a bit more to Zimbabwe cricket. I’ve apologised and moved forward from that and I want to work with them.”
