Wellington: Former New Zealand all-rounder Bruce Taylor, who is the only player to have scored a century and taken a five-wicket haul on Test debut, died on Saturday at 77.
The right-arm pace bowler, who batted left-handed, achieved the feat in the second Test against India at Kolkata in 1965, after being drafted into the playing XI at the last moment to replace Barry Sinclair, who had fallen ill.
After New Zealand were reduced to 233 for six, Taylor joined Bert Sutcliffe and added 163 for the seventh wicket.
Taylor made the majority of the runs — 105 off 158 deliveries with 14 fours and three sixes. The strike rate of 66.5 in a Test was quite high for those times as he went on the counter-attack against an Indian bowling that had S Venkataraghavan, Bapu Nadkarni, Salim Durrani and Ramakant Desai.
Having begun the second day unbeaten on 13, and with his batting partner — Bert Sutcliffe, on 74, Taylor adopted a strategy of all-out attack against the host’s bowling and, by the time Sutcliffe had reached 98, was on 88 himself and closing in on his milestone century.
When he was eventually dismissed for 105, the pair had racked up a record seventh-wicket stand of 163 in 158 minutes.
Taylor then took five wickets with his pace, removing Farokh Engineer, Chandu Borde, Nadkarni, MAK Pataudi and Venkataraghavan as India folded for 380 and conceded 82-run lead. Skipper Pataudi scored 153.
The match ended in a draw.
To demonstrate this was no flash in the pan — he followed that up with five for 26 in the next Test as India were bowled out for 88.
A tall, lean man, Taylor bowled fast-medium with a high action and was an aggressive batsman.
He went on to play 30 Tests, capturing 111 wickets at 26.60 and scoring 898 runs at 20.41. On his last tour of England, in 1973, he played two ODIs.
“NZC is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of NZ all-rounder, Bruce Taylor, aged 77. In his 30 Tests, Bruce was a force of nature & remains the only player in the world to have scored a century & taken a five-for on Test debut. Our thoughts are with his family & close friends,” the New Zealand cricket board tweeted.
