Happy Birthday Sarah Taylor

Taylor was born on 20th May 1989 and was under the radar from a very early age. She was picked for England women’s team as a 17-year old in their ODI series against India in 2006. She played only as a middle order batter and got to bat in her third ODI for the first time and scored 40. In the next match she did even better and registered her first fifty with 61 in a match-winning chase. She never looked back and by the time she scored her maiden ODI century against Australia in 2007 at Chennai a star was born. She became an important member of the England team and kept delivering key performances. In 2008, Taylor and Caroline Atkins added 268 runs in the opening partnership against South Africa Lords’, a women’s cricket record which was later broken by Deepti Sharma and Punam Raut from India.

2009 was a particularly successful year as Taylor was part of both World cup winning and World T20 winning England teams. In the following years she became one of the leading names in limited over games and was T20 Women’s Cricketer of the year in 2012 and 2013. In 2014 she got the same award for ODI.

In 2015, she became the first woman to play Australia grade cricket for a men’s team and a huge boundary was broken. In 2016, after 10 years of international cricket, she announced bravely about her anxiety issues and took a prolonged break to come back strongly. She did exactly that with another world cup win with England Women’s team at home. In the tournament Taylor and Tammy Beaumont set the record for highest second wicket partnership of 275 runs, also against South Africa.

She is part of various Women’s T20 leagues in England and Australia and a very popular figure worldwide. If BCCI finally starts Women’s IPL in near future she will be that one name they would like to take part from the beginning.

Read More

Gilbert Jessop | One of the most attacking batsmen of his era