for a short time, and finally Kendrick School. Although she primarily played hockey as a teenager, at which she represented England at Under-17 and Under-19 as a forward, she began playing women's county cricket for Thames Valley, making her debut for the side in May 1993. Taylor was awarded a place at The Queen's College, Oxford to study Mathematics in 1994. At Oxford, Taylor earned three blues for hockey, and three half blues for cricket. She also played for the college men's cricket team, which included Iain Sutcliffe, who later played over three hundred county cricket matches. During her time at Oxford, Taylor continued to play for Thames Valley, and scored her maiden century in the women's County Championship, scoring 109 runs against Lancashire and Cheshire in July 1996. Her highest score prior to that innings had been 37. The following year, having graduated from Oxford with a second-class honours degree, Taylor scored successive half-centuries for Thames Valley, reaching 97 against Sussex, 77 against Lancashire and Cheshire, and an unbeaten 62 against East Midlands. She had been making intermittent appearances for England at various age group levels for the previous five years, and in September 1997, she scored 85 for England Under-21s against the touring South African side. Even so, she was not included in the team for the 1997 Women's Cricket World Cup, but she was named as a non-travelling reserve, something that Taylor said "confirmed to me my breakthrough into the senior squad." International breakthrough In April 1998, Taylor travelled to South Africa as part of the England Under-21 squad that competed in the women's Inter-Provincial Tournament, scoring two half-centuries in the competition. Her full international debut occurred later that year, during the fourth One Day International (ODI) between England and Australia. Playing as a specialist batsman, Taylor scored one run during a heavy defeat for England. Taylor finished the 1998 women's County Championship with two strong batting performances: she struck her second century, scoring 103 runs against West, followed by 65 runs against Surrey. Towards the end of the English season, she kept wicket for England in a match against England Under-21s, scoring an unbeaten 45 runs. She retained her place in the England squad for the series against the touring Indian team in 1999. England struggled in the series, and Taylor was one of a number of inexperienced players in the squad who "failed to seize