Johannesburg: Former captain Ross Taylor has slammed New Zealand`s team management, dismissing head coach Mike Hesson`s advice as laughable, and claimed he was not given enough support in his 18-month stint as skipper. Taylor was stripped of the Twenty20 and one-day captaincy last week on Hesson`s recommendation, and rejected an offer to stay on as Test skipper in the wake of New Zealand`s drawn Test series away to Sri Lanka.
Opener Brendon McCullum will take on all three roles and faces a baptism of fire as he leads New Zealand on tour to South Africa later this month. “I knew it`d be tough from the outset (with Hesson).I gave him as much support as I could but it wasn`t reciprocated,” Taylor, said to a news website. “We liaised during the Champions League," added the 28-year-old, who played with the Delhi Daredevils at the T20 tournament in South Africa in October.
He wrote down a few things for me to improve on, which were laughable, frankly,” he added, Hesson, a career coach with no experience as a player at senior level, was appointed in July. Taylor, New Zealand`s top Test batsman, has opted out of the tour to South Africa in a blow for the tourists`` hopes of upsetting the No 1-ranked Test nation in their two-match series. “I knew I had areas to work on, like in communication, but I didn`t get much support,” Taylor said of his captaincy, during which New Zealand struggled in all three formats of the game. “Instead, I organised a number of things myself, like chatting to (psychologist) Gilbert Enoka. I thought that indicated I was trying to be a better captain. I`m more disappointed in the process to be told four days before the Test series began (in Sri Lanka) that they didn`t want me as captain,” he added.
ANI
First Published: Monday, December 10, 2012, 18:24