Cricket: Patient Taylor deserves international recognition

Former New Zealand batsman Mathew Sinclair believes the numbers Ross Taylor is putting up in domestic cricket should make him irresistible to national selectors.

Sinclair, Taylor and the rest of the Central Districts line-up meet Canterbury today in the State Shield final in Christchurch.

"He deserves a chance, definitely," said Sinclair on the eve of the match.

"If the selectors are going to pick on domestic form he has to be there. I'm a great believer in guys needing to get big runs at this level of the game.

"The way he's batting he could bludgeon any attack," Sinclair, who has had a good season himself with close to 300 runs at an average of 48, said.

Sinclair has had the pleasure of watching Taylor's breakthrough season - he's registered three centuries and two unbeaten 50s in the State Shield - at close hand and said the biggest change he's noticed has been Taylor's patience. "He's prepared to wait for the ball he can hit now. That's been a noticeable change. In the past maybe he was trying too hard to hit every ball for four or six."

The last time these two sides met in a State Shield final, Taylor, along with his colleagues, seemed intent on hitting every ball for four and six. When their 50 overs were complete they had amassed 354-5, Craig Spearman (85 from 48 balls), Jamie How (92 from 113), Taylor (95 from 86) and Sinclair (40 not out from 30) reducing the home team to jelly.

That was at Jade Stadium on a quick wicket that ideally suited Central's strokemakers. This time the venue is the more sluggish Village Green, a venue the Central camp thinks will be prepared to suit the home team's slow-bowling attack that includes captain Chris Harris, Paul Wiseman and Nathan Astle.

This will be Central's third final in three years and Sinclair puts a lot of their success down to the unity fostered by distance.

"We cover an area that makes it really difficult for us to train together regularly as a team," Sinclair explained. "So when we do get together, there's a real sense of everybody playing for each other."

That unity has helped Central cover for the loss of Glen Sulzberger and Andrew Schwass in the off-season, and the injury-enforced loss of Jacob Oram this season.

They have a bowling attack that is light on big names - apologies, of course, to recalled Black Cap Michael Mason - but big on line and length.

They will need that to contain a Canterbury team with some of the biggest bats in the business in Astle, Craig McMillan and Chris Cairns.

It might be, though, that in Ross Taylor, Central has the biggest of the lot.

Canterbury: Chris Harris (c), Peter Fulton, Nathan Astle, Shane Bond, Chris Cairns, Stephen Cunis, Andrew Ellis, Brendon McCullum, Nixon McLean, Craig McMillan, Michael Papps, Shanan Stewart, Paul Wiseman.

Central: Jamie How (c), Graham Barnett, Ross Taylor, Mathew Sinclair, Jarrod Englefield, Bevan Griggs, Brendon Diamanti, Ewen Thompson, Michael Mason, Greg Hegglun, Lance Hamilton, Brent Hefford.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY