Ross Taylor announced his plan to make a comeback to international cricket recently with the Samoan cricket team. Taylor is a veritable stalwart for the New Zealand cricket team having plundered 18,000 runs for them with the bat and also helping the Black Caps win the ICC World Test Championship.
Taylor has now revealed that the nudge to join the Samoan cricket team came from his mother while she was fighting kidney failure.
In an interview with the International Cricket Council’s digital media channels, Taylor revealed his initial hesitancy to join the Samoan cricket team when he was told about the opportunity to play for them as the nation made a push to qualify for the T20 World Cup. He has a Samoan passport through his mother’s heritage. Having retired from international cricket in April 2022, Taylor is now eligible to represent a second team after a three-year “stand out period”.
Taylor revealed he was first approached by the Samoa team through a friend, Murphy Su’a, who also plays for the team.
“On a phone call, Murphy said, ‘Samoa qualified in August for a T20 World Cup Qualifier (in Oman, in 2025), would you be interested in playing?’ And my initial thoughts were: ‘Thanks but no thanks,’ if I’m honest. I’d had my time. I was picking up my daughter (from school) at the time, and then, I walked. I told him I was probably a five per cent chance of playing, and by the time I’d walked from the car to pick her up at her classroom I was at 25 per cent. I rang him and I said I’m at 25 per cent,” Taylor told the ICC.
But then, a phone call with his ailing mother Lote turned the 25 per cent to a 100 per cent.
“My mum at the time was sick. She had kidney failure, so I had the opportunity to run it past her before she passed away. She just said: ‘Up to you, son. You do it.’”
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Taylor, who is now 41, has called Kilikiti (a Pacific island form of the game) as a major influence in his sporting upbringing.
