He last played international cricket in 2021.
Former Zimbabwe captain Brendan Taylor has set his sights on making a comeback to international cricket and hopes to play the 2027 ICC ODI World Cup. Brendan Taylor is currently serving the final months of his three-and-a-half-year ban after he breached the ICC’s anti-corruption code.
The ban will end in a few months so Taylor will be able to play again from July 25. While Taylor had thought of switching to coaching, it was Zimbabwe Cricket Managing Director Givemore Makoni who persuaded him to continue playing.
“I still want to play and I believe I could make an impact as a player. I look at where I’m at physically and mentally and if I didn’t feel I could do it, I wouldn’t bother. Givemore has really supported me on this. He sort of shut down the coaching role for now and said, ‘Can you play and try to push yourself up until the 2027 World Cup?’ Granted I’ll be 41 then but with sobriety, I’m living my truest form,” Taylor was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.
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In 2022, he had revealed that he was addicted to drugs and alcohol. He had also said that match-fixers, who filmed Taylor consuming cocaine, had approached him to fix games. He also received a threat from the fixers saying that the video would be released publicly had he not cooperated with them. Taylor opened up on the incident after four months and released a public statement in January 2022.
Rather than going ahead with the offer of the match-fixers, Taylor announced his retirement from international cricket in September 2021. However, he didn’t reveal why he had announced his retirement. In a bid to further recover, Taylor underwent rehabilitation at a centre in the Nyanga region of Zimbabwe, where he spent 90 days along with another patient and a sponsor.
Taylor said that the sponsor “showed me a new way to live”. Nonetheless, Taylor has completely recovered from his drug and alcohol addiction ever since and even opened a private coaching facility at his home. He has also made a gradual return to training. While he cannot play with domestic and international teams yet, the 39-year-old has been training by using the facilities at St John’s College which is located in Harare.
Since making his international debut in 2004, Taylor has played 34 Tests, 205 ODIs, and 45 T20Is for Zimbabwe. He has scored 2,320, 6,684, and 934 runs in the three formats respectively, hitting 17 hundreds and 57 fifties.
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