Mark Taylor: 334 Not Out

They say you should never meet your heroes, but what if you beat your heroes? That's the conundrum Mark Taylor faced in 1998, when he became just the fourth Australian to score a triple-century in Test cricket. But dare he surpass the Aussie record of 334 not out, held by Sir Donald Bradman since 1930?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
They say you should never meet your heroes, But what
if you beat your heroes? All sports come with the
drive to be the best, the fastest, the strongest, to
break records. But when you're faced with destroying a legacy,
do you play on or pull up stumps? Hey, welcome

(00:27):
to the ballroom, where we celebrate the winners, losers, and
the weird stuff between. I'm Tony Armstrong and this is
the story of how one of Australia's greatest batsmen declared
his love for his all time hero. It's evening in Peshawar, Pakistan,

(00:53):
October sixteenth, nineteen ninety eight. Australian Test captain Mark Taylor
is at a bar called the American Club, nursing a
beer and a whole lot of feelings. He doesn't get
to sleep until two am that night. It was the
second Test of the series and Australia had won the

(01:15):
toss and elected to bat. Things in the aging Australian
team weren't perfect. It was plagued by injury and had
just lost its first Test in four years in India.
But by that night in the bar, Mark had been
on the pitch for two days. He'd had a rough
first hour almost clean bold and then dropped twice by stumps.

(01:39):
On the first day, he'd cracked a tongue one hundred
and twelve runs, exactly half the team's total. In the morning,
Mark put in another century in an extended first session.
It was, he said later, his best ever day. In
the middle fatigue kicked in around run to eighty, which

(02:01):
seems fair enough. Staring down the chance to make a
Test three hundred, the captain felt weary. The session was
nearing its end and Australia seemed to have enough runs.
Mark thought about declaring, sending Pakistan to the pitch for
twenty minutes, but he changed his mind. Batting with future
captain Ricky Ponting, Mark Taylor sat on three hundred and

(02:23):
thirty two with two balls remaining. He knew what that meant.
Everyone did. He also knew he had to push the
record from his mind and just play cricket. He tried
to go deep. The first ball was a dot. His
second shot went forward to square leg and was stopped

(02:45):
for a double. It was his last that got him
to three hundred and thirty four not out at the
end of play, after a marathon twelve hours and five
hundred and sixty four deliveries in the heat, Mark Taylor
was dead level with the Australian record held by every
Little Cricketer's hero Don Bradman. It caused Mark's serious moral

(03:15):
and emotional turmoil. I spent hours that night contemplating what
to do, he told reporters later. His sister Lisa told
him to bat on, you idiot, but apparently that was
an unpopular view. Mark felt that returning to the crease
on day three would seem like batting on for his
own glory. In the morning, Mark pose for a photo

(03:39):
with the scoreboard, already knowing what he would do. With
thirty minutes left before play began, Australia declared their first
innings at four for five hundred and ninety nine. He
hoped that set an example of how the sport should
be played. It is gentleman's sport, after all, and that

(04:02):
means never pissing off the godfather of Australian cricket, who
was known for being, let's say, opinionated. Pakistan responded with
a whopping nine for five hundred and eighty before declaring.
These huge scores made it pretty obvious both teams would
run out of time. To win the Test was a draw. Actually,

(04:28):
it turns out making three hundred in an innings is
great for the batter but not so much for the team.
About fifty eight percent of matches with a triple ton
and then a draw. Australia did win the series, though
it would be twenty four years before they returned to
play Test cricket in Pakistan again. A few months later,

(04:50):
the two record holders met up in Adelaide and went
through all the stats together. Ninety year old Bradman's innings
was faster and more aggressive, with eighty four's of four
hundred and forty eight balls, but Mark Taylor's included a
six and he didn't get called off the wicket, so
who can say who wore it better. Two men now

(05:14):
sit ahead of Taylor and Bradman on Australia's list of
top scorers. David Warner whack three hundred and thirty five
not out in twenty nineteen, which caused some murmurings among
already fired up cricket fans, and Matthew Hayden racked up
a massive three eighty at the Whacker back in two
thousand and three. Neither man stop to honor the don

(05:40):
and that's the way sport goes. Be the best, the fastest,
the record breaker. Mark Taylor had a different take. He said,
you always play for enjoyment and whatever happens, that will
always be true because Donald, George Bradman and Mark Anthony
Taylor will be joined forever at three hundred and thirty four.

(06:12):
Thanks for listening to the Poolroom with me, Tony Armstrong.
This has been an iHeart production. Join me next time
for more cracking sports stories. See ya,