Mark Taylor wasn’t the first Australian cricket captain faced with a tricky decision to make in Pakistan, but could be the last. Taylor was reflecting on the dilemma he had when deciding whether to bat on beyond his score of 334 in the second Test of the 1998 series in Peshawar.
As if posting a triple-century on the subcontinent wasn’t hard enough, Taylor had a tough call to make at the end of day two, when he was not out on the same score Don Bradman posted against England 68 years earlier.
At the time, 334 was the pinnacle of Test batting for Australian players (Matthew Hayden bettered the mark with 380 against Zimbabwe in 2003), and so Taylor had to ponder whether to declare with his score level with Bradman’s, or overtake him the following day.
Taylor declared the innings closed before play the next morning and was widely acclaimed at home for his generous gesture and for putting his team ahead of individual glory.
But contrary to popular belief, Taylor felt it would have been in his team’s best interests had he batted on briefly on the third morning – until he realised what the popular perception would be at home.
“I did consider batting on, only as a psychological thing with their (Pakistan’s) two openers,” Taylor told AAP.
“I knew how good the pitch was and I was just thinking to bat on for 15 minutes just so their openers wouldn’t know when they were going to bat.
“I thought about that option but that’s when I thought about the score.
“I thought if I do bat on for 15 minutes people will only assume I batted on to get 335 and I didn’t want people to think that, because that was not the case at all.
“So, we’d made 599 and I thought ‘That’s plenty of runs to win a Test match, let’s go have a bowl’.”
The match petered out to a high-scoring draw, but Taylor found the first two days a combination of the planets aligning to bat the best he had since his first year in the Australian side, in 1989.
Having retained his place in the side following his well-publicised slump of 1995-97, Taylor felt unburdened when he arrived in Pakistan, and fresh and energetic following his decision to use a cricket-free winter to get himself the fittest he had been ahead of the Ashes summer of 1998-99.
On those first two days in Peshawar he batted so well he barely noticed tiredness, until it dawned on him he was closing in on 300.
From 290 he found his legs heavy, but once he started closing in on some other famous Australian scores he was barely troubled.
“I knew 307 was Bob Cowper’s, I knew 311 was Bob Simpson’s number and I knew 334 was Bradman’s number,” he said.
“I’d had a lot to do with Simmo – he was coach at NSW when I was there and coaching Australia when I first got into the Australian side, so when I got past 311, I said to Ricky Ponting, who I was batting with, ‘I’ve just got Simmo there’.”
Taylor could have passed Bradman’s mark in the last over of the second day, but he twice clipped Aamir Sohail to mid-wicket, where Ijaz Ahmed first pulled off a great save and then made a regulation stop, which ended the day.
“I walked off thinking it was good to end up on the same score because I just played the last over as I played every other over,” Taylor said.
“I didn’t try to stop on his score, I didn’t try to stay behind and I didn’t try to go past.
“Had those shots gone through I would have taken the run and I would have got 335.
“I always tell people it was a quirk of fate that I ended up on the same score with Bradman.”
It now fills Taylor with sadness to think Pakistan is a no-go zone for international cricketers following the assassination attempts on the Sri Lankan team in March and the ongoing threat of terrorism.
Australia refused to tour Pakistan in 2002 because of security concerns and this year, before the attack on the Sri Lankan players.
Australia are scheduled to play Pakistan abroad in 2010, but that Test series has been earmarked for England.
In the meantime, Pakistan will arrive in Australia having won only four Tests on these shores previously, and keen to avoid a hat-trick of whitewashes following their 3-0 series defeats a decade ago and in the summer of 2004-05.
Taylor, now a commentator, is unsure exactly what to expect from Mohammad Yousuf’s side, which is locked 1-1 in New Zealand entering the third Test, in Napier starting Friday.
“You just never know what you’re going to get with Pakistan,” he said.
“They’ve got some very good cricketers and dangerous players who can change the game quickly, but they can also change it the wrong way quickly as well – they’re the sort of side that can be bowled out one day for 50 and make 500 the next.
“The fact they’re not getting as much cricket as they used to is not a good thing for their development either.
“I expect the Australians to beat them, but they’re the sort of side if they come out and play well early on and get some confidence, they could worry you.”
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