New Delhi:
When one talks about prolific run-getters in ODIs, the names Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma come to the fore. However, there is a New Zealand batsman who has been making brilliant strides in ODI cricket for the past one year. In the 2018/19 period, Kohli has blasted 1202 runs at a freakish average of 133. The next on the list is 34-year-old Ross Taylor, who has blasted 920 runs at an average of 92. Taylor has displayed his class in the current series against Sri Lanka which New Zealand has won by achieving a 3-0 whitewash. His knocks in the three-match series were 54, 90 and 137 in the three ODIs at Mount Maunganui and Nelson.
In fact, the three knocks in this series by Taylor has put him in an elite list. The right-hander’s 137 in the third game made him the only New Zealand player to hit 20 ODI centuries but it was his sixth consecutive fifty-plus score in ODIs, making him only the third New Zealand player after Kane Williamson and Andrew Jones to achieve this feat. Taylor’s streak began in the series against England when he blasted 181* at the University Oval in Dunedin at the start of the year. In the two ODIs against Pakistan in the UAE, he managed scores of 80 and 86* as New Zealand drew the three-match series 1-1 with the final game getting washed out.
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Along with Taylor, the other batsmen who have hit fifties in six consecutive ODI innings are Gordon Greenidge of the West Indies in 1979/80, Andrew Jones of New Zealand in the 1988/89 series, Australia’s Mark Waugh in 1999, Pakistan’s Mohammad Yousuf in 2003 and Williamson who achieved it in the 2015 season. Javed Miandad of Pakistan holds the world record for most 50-plus scores in ODI history when he went past fifty in nine consecutive innings in the 1987 season.
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Taylor has a chance to create more records in the upcoming five ODI series against India beginning on January 23. In the last series between the two sides in 2014 in New Zealand, Taylor, along with Williamson were in excellent form. Taylor’s scores in the ODI series were 55, 57, 17, 112* and 105 in the five-match series which New Zealand won 4-0 with one match in Auckland tied. In the same series, Williamson slammed 71,77,65,60 and 88 in what was a brilliant series for these two players.
