Brendan Taylor

Brendan Ross Murray Taylor (born 6 February 1986) is a Zimbabwean former international cricketer and a former Zimbabwean captain, who played all formats of the game. Taylor is a right-handed batsman but is also an off spinner. In 2015, former Zimbabwe captain Alistair Campbell described Taylor as "our standout player for the last seven or eight years". He is known for his unorthodox shots especially his ability to play upper cuts over the third man and ramp shots with elegance and are often considered as his trademark signature shots. His style of play and ability to make substantial contribution with the bat often drew comparisons with that of Andy Flower. He represented Zimbabwe in four ICC T20 World Cup tournaments in 2007, 2010, 2012 and 2014. Also, he represented Zimbabwe in three ICC ODI world cups as well in 2007, 2011 and 2015.

He captained Zimbabwe in ODIs until 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup, having taken over the reins from Elton Chigumbura after the 2011 Cricket World Cup. He became the first Zimbabwean batsman to hit back-to-back One-Day International (ODI) centuries (128 not out and 107 not out), achieved against New Zealand in October 2011. He repeated the feat again at the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup. He was selected to play Twenty20 cricket for the Wellington cricket team as an overseas player in New Zealand's HRV Twenty20 Cup in December 2011. His 433 runs at the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup set a new record for Zimbabwe in any World Cup. His 11 centuries in ODIs is also a Zimbabwe record surpassing Alistair Campbell's 7.

Taylor quit his national side soon after the 2015 World Cup but on 14 September 2017, he terminated his contract with Nottinghamshire to return home to Zimbabwe. It was announced that Taylor had decided return home and play for Zimbabwe for personal reasons.

In November 2018, Taylor became the first batsman for Zimbabwe to score a century in each innings in a Test on two occasions. In October 2020, in the first ODI against Pakistan, Taylor scored his 17th century in international cricket to become the batsman with the most centuries for Zimbabwe across all three formats. Due to all these achievements, Taylor is often regarded as one of the finest batsman of Zimbabwe in the modern era. In July 2021, during Zimbabwe's home series against Bangladesh, Taylor played in his 200th ODI match. In September 2021, ahead of Zimbabwe's third ODI match against Ireland, Taylor announced that he would retire from international cricket following the match.

In January 2022, he made a revelation about his forced involvement into spot-fixing due to the circumstances he had to deal with and stated that he will be facing a lengthy international ban for failing to report details related to it on time. Later the same month, Taylor was banned from all cricket for years by the International Cricket Council (ICC). Provided by Wikipedia