Former New Zealand captain Ross Taylor has come up with a controversial allegation against his former Indian Premier League franchise Rajasthan Royals, stating he was slapped by one of the owners during the league’s 2011 edition.
The former player has come up with the claim in his autobiography titled ‘Ross Taylor: Black & White’. As per Taylor, this incident took place following Royals’ defeat in an IPL 2011 match against the then Kings XI Punjab in Mohali.
An excerpt from the book published by Stuff.co.nz says Taylor was slapped by this individual who owned a stake in Royals for getting out for a duck. In Taylor’s own words, while the slaps weren’t “hard“, he had no reason to believe it was done in fun and humour by the person.
“The chase was 195, I was lbw for a duck and we didn’t get close. Afterwards, the team, support staff and management were in the bar on the top floor of the hotel. Liz Hurley was there with Warnie [Shane Warne].”
Taylor writes in his book.
“One of the Royals owners said to me, ‘Ross, we didn’t pay you a million dollars to get a duck,’ and slapped me across the face three or four times. He was laughing and they weren’t hard slaps but I’m not sure that it was entirely play-acting.”
“Under the circumstances, I wasn’t going to make an issue of it, but I couldn’t imagine it happening in many professional sporting environments,”
he added.
Taylor, who retired from international cricket earlier this year, had a disastrous IPL 2011 for the Royals. The veteran Kiwi right-hander mustered only 181 runs from his 12 innings of the tournament while going at a strike-rate of just 119.07. He was picked for 1 million dollars, but that wouldn’t justify an act of misbehaviour on the part of the individual involved at the time with the inaugural season champions.
He didn’t disclose the details of the person who slapped him, leaving it to guesswork, with Royals having gone through multiple ownership transformations and shifts since the IPL began way back in 2008.
Unlike his stint with RR, the batter had a very fruitful run with Royal Challengers Bangalore over three previous seasons of the IPL. Taylor relished his time playing for the three-time runners-up, scoring 517 runs from his 22 innings with a strike-rate of 142.03. His tally included a couple of half-centuries, including a best of 81 not out.
Taylor may have gotten a bumper deal with Royals for IPL 2011 but he wishes now he had stayed put with RCB and remained in an atmosphere that brought the best out of him.
“While it was amazing to go for a million dollars, in the long run I would’ve been better off if RCB had got me for US$950,000,”
he wrote in his autobiography.
“If they had, it would have been my fourth year with them. While the IPL is pretty unsentimental, there is loyalty towards long-serving players and I probably would have had a longer IPL career as a one-franchise player.”
The poor season with RR was the beginning of the decline for Taylor in the IPL, where he played just three more seasons for Delhi Daredevils and Pune Warriors. After a bright start, Taylor finished his IPL career with an average of 25.42 and strike-rate of 123.72. The downward curve with his game reflected in his T20I returns for New Zealand, too, as he bid adieu with a strike-rate of 122.37 at 26.15 runs per innings.
