Carrying New Zealand's batting hopes

In a New Zealand line-up that still looks fairly thin, Ross Taylor is arguably the most talented, and the one who'll be expected to carry most of the batting burdens of the team in the World Cup. Their first match of the tournament will also most likely be his 100th, and when he reaches that landmark Taylor will become only the second player from their current World Cup squad to have played 100 or more ODIs largely as a batsman. Scott Styris is the other, but at 35 he is probably past his best.

All of which places the onus on Taylor to ensure that New Zealand shrug off their recent indifferent form in the subcontinent and put up a display that is consistent with their usual tendency to play above themselves in major tournaments. Taylor surely has the skill to take on such a responsibility, but his lack of consistency and his recent form - notwithstanding the 69 he scored in a losing cause against Pakistan in Hamilton - will probably be a source of worry for Daniel Vettori.

In the two years since March 2009, Taylor's form has been patchy, with the few significant contributions being interspersed with plenty of failures. During this period Taylor has averaged barely 30, with only nine fifties in 37 innings. These returns seem especially meagre when compared to his stats in the eight months preceding this period. Admittedly, some of the opposition weren't of the highest quality, but the numbers were still very impressive - seven 50-plus scores in 14 innings, and an average of 64. Against Bangladesh in Chittagong in October 2008, Taylor's 103 helped clinch the decider in a three-match series that was level 1-1. Since then, though, the returns have hardly been commensurate with the talents of a man who announced himself on the world stage with a 133-ball 128 in only his third one-day international.

A problem that has dogged Taylor almost through his career has been his inconsistency, and his inability to get off to starts. Overall in his career, he has been dismissed for less than 10 on 31 occasions in 89 innings (excluding innings when he was unbeaten for less than 10). That's greater than one in three innings, which is pretty high for a middle-order batsman. What's even more disappointing is the fact that the percentage has gone up in the last couple of years: from March 2009 he has fallen for a single-digit score 16 times in 37 innings, which is once every 2.3 innings.

In fact, New Zealand's entire top order has been going through a pretty rough time over the last couple of years, which largely explains their dismal ODI record during this period - in 41 matches they've won 13 and lost 25. Their win-loss ratio of 0.52 is worse than those of almost all the other top teams.

Their immediate World Cup form is a huge contrast from their 2007 record too: then, they'd won the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy, beating Australia in all three games with a couple of exceptional run-chases. Now they've lost the series to Pakistan, giving their opponents their first series win in a bilateral ODI series in more than two years. In fact, in their last 17 ODIs, New Zealand have won exactly one, and lost 14.

Their batting woes are reflected in the fact that they've only scored three hundreds in these 41 matches. McCullum, Jesse Ryder and Kane Williamson have achieved the feat once each, but none of the others have. Taylor has topped 50 nine times but hasn't gone past 95. In fact, none of the top-order regulars has a batting average of more than 33, which tells the story of their struggles.

Taylor's tendency to get out early is a worry, and a comparison of his numbers with those of Martin Crowe and Stephen Fleming, two of New Zealand's best ODI batsmen, confirms that his percentage of low scores is relatively high. Fleming was dismissed for under 10 in only 27.51% of his innings compared to Taylor 34.44. However, Taylor has a higher average in innings in which both batsmen made at least 20, which shows he's pretty good at making his starts count. Taylor could do worse than have someone like MS Dhoni as his role model: Dhoni's percentage of sub-10 dismissals is only 19.62%, which means only once in five innings does he get out for a single-digit score.

Taylor's recent form hasn't been great, but his stats against spin bode well for him for the World Cup. In the subcontinent, slow bowling is likely to play a big role, and Taylor has been pretty comfortable against that stuff in the past: he averages almost 49 against them at a run-rate of 5.23 runs per over, which is significantly better than his numbers against pace. And the stats don't change much when he faces spinners in the subcontinent either. The World Cup is also an opportunity for Taylor to make amends for fairly ordinary performances in Bangladesh and India in 2010. It's also a chance to make up for an awful World Cup in 2007: he scored 107 runs in six innings, of which 85 came against Kenya. Against the Test-playing nations, his scores read 0, 0, 10, 3, and 9. Clearly, there are a few points to prove for Taylor in the 2011 World Cup.