Injured Black Cap Ross Taylor said today he was desperate to play in the one-day series decider against England, as pundits declared his unbeaten 181 the greatest ever limited-overs innings by a Kiwi batsman.<\/p>\n
Taylor overcame cramps and a severe thigh strain to bludgeon New Zealand to victory with a career-best performance in the fourth ODI in Hamilton yesterday.<\/p>\n
Grimacing with pain after every shot and limping between the wickets, he levelled the series 2-2 to set up a winner-takes-all clash in Christchurch on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Coach Mike Hesson was reluctant to risk Taylor in the crunch match if there was risk of long-term injury, and has called in rookie Mark Chapman as cover.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to know the extent of it and whether it\u2019s one of those injuries that can get worse, or whether you can grin and bear it, we\u2019re just not sure yet,\u201d Hesson told reporters.<\/p>\n
Taylor said he was keen to play and would be icing his injured thigh and resting with the intention of taking the field even if not fully fit.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously I won\u2019t be 100 (percent) but we\u2019ll just see how it pulls up in the next couple of days and give it the best chance possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taylor hurt his thigh earlier in the series then aggravated it diving to avoid a run out as New Zealand chased England\u2019s challenging target of 336.<\/p>\n
The 34-year-old\u2019s 181 not out was his 19th ODI century and the third highest score by a New Zealander in the 50-over format.<\/p>\n
But Dominion Post cricket writer Mark Geenty said the context and manner of Taylor\u2019s knock made it a standout contender for New Zealand\u2019s greatest ODI innings.<\/p>\n
Aside from Taylor\u2019s injury, he pointed out that New Zealand were chasing a huge total against quality opposition to keep the series alive, and had lost their two openers for ducks.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaylor wins. No decision review system required,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
Radio New Zealand\u2019s Jamie Wall hailed \u201cRoss the Boss\u201d as one of the Black Caps\u2019 all-time greats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Injured Black Cap Ross Taylor said today he was desperate to play in the one-day series decider against England, as pundits declared his unbeaten 181 the greatest ever limited-overs innings by a Kiwi batsman. Taylor overcame cramps and a severe thigh strain to bludgeon New Zealand to victory with a career-best performance in the fourth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24198,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24199,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24197\/revisions\/24199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}