Former New Zealand batter Ross Tayor, who recently released his autobiography, titled ‘Black & White’, revealed some unknown facts about his cricketing journey. Taylor started his Indian Premier League career with Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in 2008, and revealed that he would have played the tournament for a longer duration if the franchise had bought him in the 2011 edition. After not being picked by RCB, the batter was picked by Rajasthan Royals, where he played with late Australia spin maestro Shane Warne.

“While it was amazing to go for a million dollars, in the long run I would’ve been better off if RCB had got me for USD 950,000. If they had, it would have been my fourth year with them. While the IPL is pretty unsentimental, there is loyalty towards long-serving players and I probably would have had a longer IPL career as a one-franchise player. On the other hand, if I’d stayed at RCB, I wouldn’t have played with greats such as Virender Sehwag, Shane Warne, Mahela Jayawardene and Yuvraj Singh,” Taylor wrote in his autobiography, as reported by ESPNCricinfo.

“When you fetch that sort of money, you’re desperately keen to prove that you’re worth it. And those who are paying you that sort of money have high expectations – that’s professional sport and human nature. I’d paid my dues at RCB: if I’d had a lean trot, the management would have had faith in me because of what I’d done in the past. When you go to a new team, you don’t get that backing. You never feel comfortable because you know that if you go two or three games without a score, you come under cold-eyed scrutiny,” he stated further.

Earlier, Taylor had revealed about getting slapped by one of the owners of Rajasthan Royals, after he got out for a duck during a steep chase against Punjab Kings, who were then named Kings XI Punjab. He did write that the slaps were not hard, but said that he was not sure “it was entirely play-acting”.

“Rajasthan played Kings XI Punjab in Mohali. The chase was 195, I was lbw for a duck and we didn’t get close. Afterwards, the team, support staff and management were in the bar on the top floor of the hotel. Liz Hurley was there with Warnie,” wrote Taylor.

“One of the Royals owners said to me, ‘Ross, we didn’t pay you a million dollars to get a duck’ and slapped me across the face three or four times,” Taylor revealed.

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“He was laughing and they weren’t hard slaps but I’m not sure that it was entirely play-acting. Under the circumstances I wasn’t going to make an issue of it, but I couldn’t imagine it happening in many professional sporting environments,” the iconic Kiwi batter wrote.

Taylor played for Royal Challengers Bangalore from 2008 to 2010 and then was with RR in 2011. He went on to represent Delhi Capitals, then known as the Delhi Daredevils, as well as the now defunct Pune Warriors India.