Former New Zealand star Ross Taylor has revealed a bizarre incident that took place during his stint with Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League. Taylor began his IPL career with Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2008 before Rajasthan Royals secured his services in 2011. He stayed with the franchise for just one year and could not really make much of an impact with the bat.
In 12 matches, he managed to score only 181 runs at a modest strike-rate of 119 and a top-score of 47 not out. Royals released after just one season before Delhi Daredevils (now Delhi Capitals) signed him up. And while Taylor stayed with the Royals for just one year, it was enough for him to witness an absolute unexpected incident involving him and one of the team co-owners.
When Ross Taylor was slapped by the Royals co-owner:
In his autobiography ‘Ross Taylor: Black & White’, Taylor has revealed how the team co-owner slapped him 3 or 4 times after he was out for a duck during a match against Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings). Taylor was speaking about the difficulties a player face in a new IPL team. Taylor revealed that while the slaps were not hard, he was totally taken aback by the incident.
“When you go to a new team, you don’t get that backing. You never feel comfortable because you know that if you go two or three games without a score, you come under cold-eyed scrutiny,” said Taylor.
“A case in point: Rajasthan played Kings XI Punjab in Mohali. 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.
“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.
Overall, Taylor played 7 seasons in IPL with his last appearance coming in 2014. He played 55 matches and scored 1017 runs with the help of 3 fifties.