KEY POINTS:
Ross Taylor has shrugged his shoulders over his imminent return to No 3, saying he will enjoy the extra opportunity but will miss the chance to leave his pads off at the start of the innings.
Shaping as the brightest young New Zealand star since Daniel Vettori was
selected in the test side as a 17-year-old, Taylor posted his maiden ODI century from No 3 against Sri Lanka earlier in the summer, before being shuffled down to No 4 in the CB tri-series.
However, a combination of the progress he made in Australia and concerns over stand-in No 3 Peter Fulton means he's destined to return to the first-drop position when the opening match of the Chappell-Hadlee series starts today.
"It doesn't really faze me," he said this week. "No 3 and No 4 are pretty similar - it's just nice to have my name somewhere on the team sheet.
"There'll be a slight adjustment but the idea will be to go in with the same mindset and have some success there.
"I enjoyed batting at 4, but you probably have a little more time to get yourself in at 3; there's a bit more of a licence to play your shots. Hopefully I'll just be able to play my own game and express myself."
Coach John Bracewell justified the shift to No 4 on the grounds that he wanted to offer the 22-year-old some protection in what was, arguably, the toughest environment in world cricket and against, supposedly, the best team going round.
However, Taylor wasted no time in announcing himself to Australians, smashing 84 against the hosts in New Zealand's series opener at Hobart, before making a similar impression on England in striking an equally-cavalier 71 at Perth.
The free-flowing right-hander emerged from the series with 282 runs at an average 35.25, including two half-centuries and four other promising starts that, but for a variety of reasons, might have blossomed into something special.
For all that, Taylor was also guilty of a number of errors with the bat and in the field, leading to a total package that mixed brilliance with slapstick, and ended up raising questions about his powers of concentration.
At Hobart against England, he miscued a hook and skied a catch to cover, at Sydney against Australia he lashed a reckless drive to mid-off, and to top it all off, at Melbourne he aimed an ugly swipe at Michael Clarke and was bowled.
Add in a couple of inexplicable catching bloopers in the outfield and a handful of ground-fielding mistakes, and the total picture was somewhat less than ideal.
"I'm still young, I'm learning a lot," Taylor said. "It was good to score some runs overseas but I don't think I had an outstanding series.
"I did all right and hopefully I can take some confidence from that. I suppose it gave me a bit of belief. When you score runs at domestic level you still have the doubt about the next step up.
"But when you score runs early in your international career, as I have this summer, then it does give your confidence a boost."
As for the catching lapses, he was at a loss to explain how it happened.
"I'm just working as hard as possible. You never go out there to drop catches deliberately, it's just about working hard and hoping your confidence is still okay so you can take the next catch."
Taylor disagreed with suggestions that Australia would be dramatically weakened by the loss of Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist and Andrew Symonds, arguing that the world champions had such great depth that any number of players could stand up to be counted.
He said beating the Australians in the upcoming Chappell-Hadlee contests would be just as hard as beating Australia on any other occasion.
"It's still going to be a strong side," he said of his opposition. "It's hard to replace the Pontings and the Gilchrists, but [Brad] Haddin and [Adam] Voges are good players.
"I think we've just got to go out there and do what we do well. If we do that we'll put the performances on the board. But we can't be drawn into their selection concerns.
"Given the depth in Australian cricket, they'll still be calling on good players."
The irony of both Australia and New Zealand coming off losses and wanting to improve their fortunes was not lost on Taylor, who said his team at least had the advantage of being in reasonably familiar territory.
New Zealand struggled against Sri Lanka earlier in the summer and were the first team eliminated from the tri-series, and Australia - against all the odds - were outplayed at the end of series by England, and were humbled 2-0 in the finals.
"We've been in this position before but they've been here less so," said Taylor. "We'll be trying to win a few games here and set them back, and hopefully give their confidence another knock before the World Cup.
"We can take a little bit from their loss to England but obviously they'll be hurting and wanting to bounce back and knock us over in all three games."
He believed the tri-series experience for both teams would give an extra edge to the Chappell-Hadlee series.
"Definitely, I mean we had a lot of close games over there and probably should have won three of them, so hopefully we can rectify that over the course of this series. We know what we have to do and we just have to get out there and perform with ball and ball, and in the field."
Ross Taylor accumulated some good totals in the tri-series but acknowledges he made errors. Photo / Reuters
