Brendan Taylor      

Brendan Taylor has several strokes to draw upon as a batsman, but perhaps the most important aspect of his game is his ability to read, and adapt to, a match situation. That feature of his cricket was on show when he shot to prominence at Cape Town on September 12, 2007, his ice-cool 60 not out carrying Zimbabwe to an incredible five-wicket win over Australia in the ICC World Twenty20. Taylor marshalled a tense run-chase with the sort of sang froid that few had ever credited him with.

As a young cricketer, he was nurtured by Iain Campbell, father of Alistair, at the well-known Lilfordia primary school near Harare, was a regular choice for national age-group teams and played in two Under-19 World Cups. He made his first-class debut for Mashonaland A at the age of 15; the following year he scored 200 not out in the B Division of the Logan Cup, and he was fast-tracked into the Zimbabwe national team against Sri Lanka in 2003-04 at the age of 18 after the withdrawal of the so-called rebel players. As a batsman he was soon well respected by the opposition, but tended to get out when well set. Poor footwork early in an innings was also a handicap at the start of his career, but he worked to improve that and in November 2009 struck his maiden one-day hundred.

That knock proved something of a turning point for him, and in the year that followed he struck centuries against Sri Lanka and South Africa and proved to be Zimbabwe's stand-out batsman at the 2011 World Cup, his trademark uppercut to third man one of the lasting images of the tournament. His star continued to rise as Zimbabwe readied themselves for a return to Test cricket, and in June 2011 he was named captain of the national side.

The additional responsibility of captaincy worked wonders for his batting, as he scored four centuries in his first seven Tests in charge, after scoring none in his ten previous Tests. He also scored hundreds in each innings against Bangladesh in Harare in 2013, thus becoming the first from Zimbabwe, and the 12th in all, to achieve this feat. In July 2014, as part of ZC's split captaincy plan, he retained the Test leadership while Elton Chigumbura took over the limited-overs games. Though he's not very swift in the field, he has a safe pair of hands and kept wicket for Zimbabwe fairly often before Richmond Mutumbami and Regis Chakabva's progress as wicketkeepers allowed him to concentrate more fully on his batting.
Liam Brickhill