Harare:The COVID-19 pandemic has come in the way of what was supposed to be, for a change, a fairly busy international calendar for Zimbabwe, and premier batsman Brendan Taylor has called it “extremely frustrating and hurtful times”.
They don’t get to play as frequently as most of their Full Member counterparts do, but 2020 was supposed to be different for Zimbabwe with assignments against Ireland, Afghanistan, Australia, India and the Netherlands lined up.
They began the year with a home Test series against Sri Lanka and followed it with a full tour of Bangladesh. “Personally, this break is not doing us any favours,” Taylor was quoted as saying by Zimbabwean weekly ‘The Standard’. “I feel we are a team that needs to be playing more often; we’ve always been starved of cricket.
This year we had a full schedule of international cricket, but that’s now been jeopardised by this pandemic. So it’s extremely frustrating and hurtful times.
“But there are people out there losing their lives and their loved ones to this terrible virus, so at the end of the cricket is not so important anymore, is it?”
He said as sportspersons, their focus now should be on helping the less privileged sections of society get through the pandemic. “I think it’s a time where as players we can be a little more proactive, setting up GoFundMe pages trying to help the old, the homeless, and that’s a big issue in our country,” he said.
“When this virus comes to an end it will be nice to support local business, restaurants and other areas that are in desperate need and that’s where as players we are very lucky to be in a position to give back.”
Brendan Ross Murray Taylor, a former Zimbabwean captain, who plays all formats of the game. Taylor is a right-handed batsman but is also an off spinner. In 2015,former Zimbabwe captain Alistair Campbell described Taylor as “our standout player for the last seven or eight years”.
He captained Zimbabwe in ODIs until 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup, having taken over the reins from Elton Chigumbura after the 2011 Cricket World Cup.
He became the first Zimbabwean batsman to hit back-to-back One-Day International centuries (128 not out and 107 not out), achieved against New Zealand in October 2011. He repeated the feat again at the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup.
He was selected to play Twenty20 cricket for the Wellington cricket team as an overseas player in New Zealand’s HRV Twenty20 Cup in December 2011. His 433 runs at the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup set a new record for Zimbabwe in any World Cup. His 10 centuries in ODIs is also a Zimbabwe record surpassing Alistair Campbell’s 7.
Taylor quit his national side soon after the 2015 World Cup but on 14 September 2017, he terminated his contract with Nottinghamshire to return home to Zimbabwe.
It was announced that Taylor had decided return home and play for Zimbabwe for personal reasons.
In November 2018, Taylor became the first batsman for Zimbabwe to score a century in each innings in a Test on two separate occasions. (PTI)
