Bob Taylor

Among the few undisputed blessings of the Packer revolution was that it gave Bob Taylor the Test career he had almost given up hope of having. An uncomplaining understudy for almost a decade, Taylor's only cap before Alan Knott joined World Series Cricket was in New Zealand in 1970-71. Knott was fit and keen to play, but this was skipper Ray Illingworth's way of rewarding Taylor's loyalty and patience. Taylor was known as "Chat" by team-mates grateful for his willingness to talk, and often listen at length, to people he had never seen before and would never see again in tour receptions. He went on to play another 56 Tests, confirming that in wicketkeeping skills he lost nothing by comparison with Knott. As a batsman he was no more than a dogged little sticker. But it said everything about his sportsmanship that, at Adelaide in 1978-79, he walked for a tiny leg-side tickle when he was three short of what would have been his only England hundred.
John Thicknesse October 2004