Vintage Taylor was at work in Hamilton, says New Zealand batting coach Fulton

Those both happened in the space of a few days in early 2007, the first against Australia at Eden Park in Auckland, the second down the road at Seddon Park in Hamilton.

On Wednesday, Taylor scored his fourth century in a successful run chase– an unbeaten 112 to go with the unbeaten 181 and the 118 he scored against England in early 2018, in Dunedin and Hamilton, and the 117 he scored against the Aussies all those years ago.

Fulton made an unbeaten 76 himself in that match to finish the chase of 338, then made 51 as they chased down 347 in Hamilton two days later – a record that wasn’t surpassed until Wednesday night in the same city, when the Black Caps made 348 against India.

His role with the team now is as the batting coach, rather than one of the batsmen, and as the team arrived here ahead of Saturday’s second ODI, he said he saw similarities between the Taylor of 2007 and the Taylor of 2020. “He’d played a few games and done OK and showed a bit of promise (in 2007), then he got a big hundred against a pretty handy bowling attack. That was a special knock that day in a similar situation. When you watch that innings last night, it probably wasn’t too far off vintage Ross Taylor from any stage during his career,” Fulton noted.

Reflecting on what has made Taylor such an impressive ODI batsman, Fulton pointed to his top two inches. “He’s obviously an extremely talented batsman, but he’s pretty strong mentally,” he said. “I know he was disappointed in the Twenty20 series, that he wasn’t able to win a couple of games for the team – I think he prides himself on being the guy that comes through in those situations.”

The Black Caps came into the ODI series having lost the last three Twenty20 matches against India from winning positions, needing three of five balls, seven off six, and 57 off 54 respectively. To then come out and make 348 with 11 balls to spare – completing the 10th-highest ODI run chase of all time – was quite the turnaround. Fulton said the process of figuring out how to go about the chase had involved a combination of factors.

“Last night we looked a bit at the way India played, and we wanted to be 180 or thereabouts after 30 overs, and if we could be no more than three wickets down, we knew we’d give ourselves a chance later on to push on and be pretty aggressive. It was nice that it panned out that way and I think a lot of credit goes to the openers, because if you lose wickets in the first 10 overs, it makes a run chase like that almost impossible,” he explained.

Fulton said “almost” because the last time the Black Caps made a record chase, it collapsed to 41-4, leaving him and his predecessor as batting coach, Craig McMillan, who made a century, to pull the team out of the hole.

Taylor had good support on Wednesday, first from Henry Nicholls, who made 78, then from stand-in captain Tom Latham, who made 69 off just 48 balls, “He’s really cemented that No 5 spot and him and Ross have had some great partnerships, especially against India.,” Fulton said of Latham.