Yet you started well at Chelmsford,
with 55 and 96 in two innings, a match where we racked up big runs,
then recorded a duck at Taunton, after which we scored a club record
801-8. That must have been a frustrating few days. Were there any
comments flying around?
Yes, I felt in really good touch at
Chelmsford. I got fifty in the first innings, then made 96 in the
second when it was turning square for Danish Kaneria. I thought it
set me up for a good season ... how wrong I was.
At Taunton, we slipped to 0-2 in the
first over and I went and changed into my fielding whites, convinced
we'd be in the field before tea. Then we batted for nearly two days
and the game became one where everyone else racked up runs and
boosted their averages.
You disappeared from the team at
that point, which seemed strange after a pretty solid start and your
previous campaign...
I had a back injury. Throughout my
career I had issues with my back and hamstrings, as I had one leg
that was longer than the other, which affected my hip rotation. A
Nottingham specialist ruled me unfit for three weeks and then it all
went sour from there
Then there were stories that you had
a stand up row with Simon Katich?
I'm really pleased to have an
opportunity to give my side of this one, as I'm aware of things that
have done the rounds in the intervening period.
As I mentioned earlier, Katich came
over as overseas in 2007. Clearly, he wanted to score the runs to
force his way back into the Australian side. He was fairly
introverted and hardly ever spoke in the middle. That was so
different to Michael Di Venuto, who talked you through bad patches
and encouraged you all the time when you were batting. That wasn't
Katich's way at all.
When Michael Dighton came in, my place
appeared to have gone. After we played Nottinghamshire at Trent
Bridge, I was approached in the dressing room and asked to support a
motion of no confidence in Houghton. I refused to do so, as I had a
lot of time for him. I don't think that did me any favours, if I'm
honest. That game was the last I played for Derbyshire's first team.
Around two weeks later, with the
atmosphere increasingly poisonous, Houghton was relieved of his
duties. Simon Katich took over and was effectively captain and coach.
He then proceeded to name a team for
the game against Middlesex with only one Englishman in the top seven.
I was told that I'd to go into the second team, captain them against
Yorkshire at Derby and get some runs
That was a notorious game?
You could say that. I won the toss as
skipper and, with a very young side at my disposal, opted to bowl
first.
It wasn't an easy wicket to bat on and
we were so short of bowlers that I had to bowl a spell. I ended up
taking five wickets, the only time in any form of cricket I have done
so. Now, keep in mind that I hadn't played in several weeks and was
rusty when it was our turn to bat.
I struggled to time the ball and kept
finding the fielders, but I ended up making an unbeaten 88 from 142
balls, as we lost by thirteen runs. With the team we had, we'd done
well to get so close and I had, after all, been told to go and get
some form and runs. Are results that important in second eleven? A
lot of teams use the game for trials and yes, while I had perhaps put
my personal performance ahead of the team, I thought that getting my
form back might be the best thing for Derbyshire in the long term.
When I got back to the pavilion, Karl
Krikken was furious. He asked me what I'd been playing at and I
explained. He said I'd been selfish and had put myself before the
team and we ended up having to agree to disagree.
So what happened next?
We were playing Leicestershire in the
next match the following day and I went back into the pavilion after
we'd warmed up, to get my cap and a coin to toss. As I was coming
back out, I saw Simon Katich and wondered what he was doing there.
He simply said 'we need to talk' and
sat me down, asking me to explain what had happened against
Yorkshire.
I explained everything and at the end
of it he simply looked at me and said 'that's not good enough'. He
said that he wasn't going to have people playing for themselves and
that he wasn't accepting my excuse. Then he told me he was suspending
me from all cricket for a week and that he would ring me at the end
of that week.
You must have been upset?
I was distraught. I went back in to get
my clothes, didn't bother to change and went back to my car with my
cricket bag. Apparently I walked straight past Wayne White but don't
recall that. Wayne and Richard Hodgkinson, a
trialist, simply couldn’t believe what was happening to me.
I sat in my car, stunned and
heartbroken. I wondered if I should go back in to the dressing room
and play anyway, but eventually drove out of the car park and went
home. I was in a daze and have no real recollection of that journey.
I phoned my Dad and he told me to get in touch with the Professional
Cricketers Association.
I spoke to Jason Ratcliffe at the PCA
and he initially thought it was a wind-up. He said to wait for the
official documentation on the suspension. I never got any - the club
committee seemed unaware that it had happened. The PCA lawyers gave
me advice, but it all died down, though it killed my career at
Derbyshire.
I was really, desperately hurt by the
whole thing. Cricket was my life and my livelihood and it looked like
an incident that was badly misinterpreted and handled was going to
take it away.
At what point did you decide to
leave?
Yorkshire seemed to be interested in my
going back. I was still in contract with Derbyshire, but the writing
was on the wall. After I returned to the club following the
suspension, I played two or three second team games but it just
didn't feel the same. While I still wanted to play for Derbyshire,
there seemed little point when the club appeared to have become an
autocracy.
I felt that I had to leave to get away
from Simon Katich, not Derbyshire. I asked the club for my release,
which was granted, and I signed a pre-contract deal with Yorkshire.
Of course, what happened next was that
Katich announced he was not coming back and was going to play for
Australia again!
John Morris took over the reins as
coach and told me that he saw me as a potential future captain or
vice-captain. Glamorgan, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire were
also interested in my services, but it really came down to my staying
at Derbyshire or going back home to Yorkshire. The crucial factor was
signing that pre-contract deal and I opted to go back home.
Yet it was a really sad day when we
locked the door of our house at Kirk Langley, where we had been very
happy, for the last time. It all went wrong at Derbyshire, but I am
still proud of what I achieved. I know in my heart that I am 99.9%
innocent and did little wrong. I played a one-off poor innings in
mitigating circumstances, which was at odds with what I had done
throughout 2006. But at the end of it all, I was the only Derbyshire
player to score a century on both his first-class and one-day debut,
which I am very proud of and is something to look back on in years to
come.
Yet the move back home didn't work
out for you. At what point did you start thinking of a career outside
the game?
It went downhill pretty much from the
start. My hamstrings proved a problem again and I tore both of them
in turn. One saw me out for six weeks, the other for four and I had
to prove myself all over again in the seconds.
I wasn't helped by Michael Vaughan
retiring from England duties and returning to the county game. There
was an established and good top three of Lyth, Vaughan and McGrath
and I couldn't get in to the side. I made three centuries for the
second eleven, but the man management at the club continued to be
poor and if you weren't in the side you were pretty much an
afterthought.
In July 2009, John Morris asked if I
was interested in going back to Derbyshire – initially on loan for
the remainder of that season, then for the 2010 summer. The idea held
some appeal, but I was loathe to move my family again and our baby
daughter, Isobel, was born in September of 2009. My wife was by that
time working at Leeds United and enjoying it, so uprooting again made
no sense.
At the end of that summer, I told
Yorkshire that I wanted to retire and go into business, so they paid
up my contract and I was finished as a first-class cricketer.
To be continued
Really enjoying the interviews with Chris Taylor, Peakfan. I was a big fan of the lad when he was the County Ground and thought he could do big things at 3 for us. It's good to hear his side of the story.
ReplyDeleteCheshire Chris