Claire Taylor: England Cricket Legend and World Cup Winner
Claire Taylor is the first woman to be named Wisden’s Cricketer of the Year. She remains the highest scorer, male or female, in an ODI at Lord’s. She was the Player of the Series when England won both the ODI and T20 World Cups in 2009. She studied mathematics at Oxford and left a well-paying job at P&G to be a full-time cricketer when there was no money in the women’s game.
Women’s cricket has undergone quite a transformation since Taylor’s playing days. “Transformation is the right word,” she said. “There have been a number of incremental changes on the way, and the difference is huge between when I played 15 years ago and now.”
She noted that current players are supported all the way through with kit sponsors and best venues. They receive the best coaches and are paid to play. This contrasts sharply with the era Taylor handled, which was defined by a stark lack of financial stability. “You had to leave your job,” Taylor explained. “If I wanted to be a better cricketer, I had to make some sacrifice. It was a difficult decision.”
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She recalled meeting a former colleague years later who had a “lovely job, a lovely house, a Porsche and everything.” Taylor, meanwhile, did not have a job and lived at home with her parents. She admitted it was hard to drop off the career ladder, though she found it easier to accept because staying on the corporate track would have required relocating to places like Geneva or Cincinnati, where cricket is scarce.
World domination
Beating the old enemy: Taylor’s 76 n.o. in the 2009 T20 World Cup semifinal ‘brought together everything’ she had been ‘working on to dominate’ top teams like Australia.
Looking back at the 2009 World Cup wins, Taylor described the ODI campaign as a “wonderful tour.” England beat Sri Lanka in warm-ups, lost to Australia, but beat New Zealand in the final. She recalled the atmosphere of the T20I final at Lord’s, where England chased 86 to win against New Zealand.
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“One of the really interesting things is for me to have that innings [76 not out off 53 balls] at the Oval, in the semifinal against Australia, which brought together everything that I had been working towards in terms of how to dominate another team and how to work with my batting partner,” Taylor said. The pressure on the Australian bowlers was immense after they scored 160-odd runs, making England’s eventual victory feel inevitable.
Her 156 not out against India in 2006 remains the highest ODI score at Lord’s. Taylor described facing Jhulan Goswami, whom she compared to Glenn McGrath for her metronomic accuracy. “She was moving it a mile,” Taylor said. “If she had been worse, I might have got an edge on it. She was so tall.”
It is a rare honor to be named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year. “When Scyld Berry, the Wisden editor, said, ‘Come, can I meet you for lunch?’ I just thought he wanted to talk about the upcoming World Cup,” Taylor recalled. “Then he said, ‘Okay, the reason I asked you for lunch today is that I want to name you as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year. What do you think?’ And I was like, ‘Sorry, you what?'”
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She did not expect the accolade. To be selected, one must have had influence in the previous year, and Taylor noted she was “basically never out” during that period.
Defining her own game
She divided her career into three chunks. The first was figuring out the game, followed by a period of trying to be one of the best players in the world. In that middle phase, she decided she did not need to emulate players like Belinda Clark or Charlotte Edwards. “I decided I didn’t need to be them. I was never going to be as good as them, only a second-rate version of them,” Taylor said. “I wanted to be the best version of me.”
Her influences were unique. She admired Debbie Hockley for hitting the ball all over the ground and Ricky Ponting for his unorthodox approach. Ponting minimized his weaknesses and maximized his ability to score from elsewhere, a strategy Taylor adopted to find her own space in the sport.
