Brian Taylor (19 June 1932 – 12 June 2017) was an English cricketer who played for and captained

Essex County Cricket Club Essex County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Essex. Founded in 1876, the club had minor county status until 1894 when ...

. Known as "Tonker" Taylor for his forthright approach to batting and his evident enjoyment of the game, Taylor was a high-class

wicketkeeper The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being watchful of the batsman and ready to take a catch, stump the batsman out and run out a batsman when occasion arises. Th ...

who was thought of in his early playing days as a potential successor to

Godfrey Evans Thomas Godfrey Evans (18 August 1920 – 3 May 1999) was an English cricketer who played for Kent and England. Described by ''Wisden'' as 'arguably the best wicket-keeper the game has ever seen', Evans collected 219 dismissals in 91 Test match ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

's keeper. He was named as Young Cricketer of the Year in 1956 by the

Cricket Writers' Club The Cricket Writers' Club is an association for cricket journalists working in print, television or radio. It was established in 1947, and contains around 90% of those eligible for membership. During the 1946–47 Ashes series, the Australian and B ...

, his first full season, though he had made his first-class debut seven years earlier. He toured South Africa with the

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

(MCC) side in 1956-57 as understudy to Evans, but did not feature in any of the

Test matches Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (association football) ...

as Evans had one of his most brilliant Test series. In the event, his left-handed batting did not develop as much as had been hoped, and the Test call never came. But Taylor still had a long and distinguished career in county cricket. From 1961 to 1972, he played in 301 consecutive

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

matches for Essex, and he captained the county from 1967 to 1973, when he retired. Under his captaincy, Essex assembled the nucleus of the young team that was to bring the county its first-ever trophies in the years after Taylor retired. In all cricket, Taylor made 1,294 dismissals, which puts him seventh on the all-time list of wicketkeepers. He also made more than 19,000 runs in a total of 572 first-class matches. He was selected as a

Wisden Cricketer of the Year The ''Wisden'' Cricketers of the Year are cricketers selected for the honour by the annual publication ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', based primarily on their "influence on the previous English season". The award began in 1889 with the naming ...

in 1972. He was a Test selector for England from 1973. He took part in the first cricket tour of Bangladesh when MCC visited in 1976-77. He also played football with Bexleyheath and Welling and Deal Town in the Kent League and Southern League. He died in 2017.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Brian 1932 births 2017 deaths People from West Ham English cricketers Essex cricketers Essex cricket captains Commonwealth XI cricketers International Cavaliers cricketers Wisden Cricketers of the Year England cricket team selectors Players cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Cricketers from Greater London North v South cricketers A. E. R. Gilligan's XI cricketers T. N. Pearce's XI cricketers 20th-century British businesspeople English footballers Kent Football League (1894–1959) players Bexley United F.C. players Deal Town F.C. players