Play nzherald.co.nz's rugby Pick the Score competition - go to: pickthescore.nzherald.co.nz
KEY POINTS:
Ross Taylor is enjoying extra responsibility within the New Zealand squad, and it's showing in his results.
Taylor's 76 off 71 balls was the main contribution towards New Zealand's 244 for eight against Australia in Adelaide on Tuesday.
It wasn't enough to enable New Zealand to put up a truly competitive score - they needed another 40 runs for that - but without Taylor it would have been a sorry performance.
Since the start of January, the Central Districts batsman has peeled off a run of strong scores against the West Indies and now Australia, re-emphasising his importance to the New Zealand batting setup.
After the opening ODI against the West Indies was rained out on New Year's Eve, Taylor has racked up scores of 13, 51 not out, 75 and 48 not out against those tourists, and now 64, 47, 4 and 76 against Australia.
The old tendency towards an early rush of blood has diminished, whether through taking on an increasingly influential batting role or gaining a greater appreciation of his talents and wanting to make full use of them.
A closer look at those numbers shows that his last three innings against the West Indies produced respectively a half century to carry New Zealand to victory in Wellington; a bruising 75 which, with Martin Guptill's debut century, steered New Zealand to an imposing 275 for four at Eden Park before rain intervened; and an unbeaten, expertly-paced innings to get the series-clinching win under Duckworth Lewis regulations as the rain was about to arrive in Napier.
He top scored against Australia at Perth and played an important hand in the Melbourne win before delivering some more hurt to the Australian bowlers in Adelaide. That's 378 runs at a fine 63 in the year so far.
"The team is very inexperienced and I've been relishing the challenge of taking my time and being the senior batter in the side along with Brendon McCullum," Taylor said yesterday.
In 57 ODIs since his debut in March 2006, Taylor, 24, is averaging a solid 40.35. He is sure to be a key figure tomorrow night when the Chappell Hadlee series goes on the line.
