New Zealand’s highest run-getter across all formats, Ross Taylor has revealed several anecdotes from his playing career in the recently released autobiography ‘Ross Taylor Black & White.
In his 16-year-long career, the 38-year-old has amassed over 18,000 international runs. In the book, he wrote extensively about his biggest superstition.
Notably, Taylor was dismissed on a zero 29 times in his career. Ross revealed that whenever he ate a duck before the match, he would get out on a zero on a matchday. Thus, he developed the superstition of not eating one before the match. He revealed that he got out on a golden duck on his World Cup debut in 2007 since he had a duck a day before.
“We were playing against England and a night before I went to a restaurant. I ate my favourite meal which is a crispy duck. The next day, Liam Plunkett bowled an outswinger, and I nicked it to Andrew Flintoff. Since then, rule number 1 was not to have a duck before the match.
He shared another instance where his friends forced him to have a duck since the match was two days away, but Taylor revealed that the result was the same, and he was dismissed without troubling the scorers.
Talking about Andrew Flintoff, who took a diving catch to dismiss Taylor during the 2007 World Cup, the 38-year-old Kiwi wrote about an interesting incident.
He disclosed that Flintoff had a worse day than him as England lost and Flintoff went partying with Ian Botham.
“Ian stayed around the bay, and Freddie decided to join him. They partied, and Flintoff started commanding a paddle boat. He then had to be rescued by the hotel staff.”
He further added, “Next morning, Duncan Fletcher was pounding on his door while Freddie was asleep wet and covered with sand.”