after readmission. For the majority of Taylor's career there were only two other Test nations, Australia and England and he only played against different opposition, New Zealand, in his final Test. Of Taylor's 42 Tests, 30 were against England. He scored all of his centuries and accumulated 2,287 runs against that opposition. In England-South Africa contests only Mitchell has scored more runs while the seven centuries is a record he shares with Mitchell, Dudley Nourse, Denis Compton and Jacques Kallis. In Currie Cup matches he scored 3,226 runs at an average of 58.65 and was part of seven championship winning teams, four with Natal and three with Transvaal. Captaincy Taylor captained his nation in four series and 18 Tests in total and although he had personal success in averaging 47.96 during this period, the team lost all four series and they won only one Test with him in charge. However this was indicative of South Africa at the time and during his whole career Taylor only enjoyed four Test victories, he played a large part in the first two of these scoring centuries in the Johannesburg wins of 1922 and 1928. Despite the results under him Taylor does have a number of captaincy achievements to his name. He holds the record for longest time spent as Test captain, he took charge of his first Test on 13 December 1913 and his last on 16 August 1924, a period of 10 years and 251 days. Taylor is one of two South African captains to have scored centuries in their first match in charge, the other is Jackie McGlew. By scoring that century he also had a share in the first occasion of opposing captains scoring centuries in the same match. Rankings On subsequently calculated world rankings Taylor reached a peak batting rating of 844 (out of 1000), this placed him top of the batting rankings. He reached this mark in February 1923 following his innings of 102 in the fifth Test of the home series with England. He remained top of the rankings for only a single match but did disturb Jack Hobbs from the top spot, the only person to do so between 1912 and 1928. References External links 1889 births 1973 deaths Cricketers from Durban Royal Flying Corps officers Royal Artillery officers KwaZulu-Natal cricketers Recipients of the Military Cross South Africa Test cricketers South Africa Test cricket captains South