Palmerston North In the space of two matches former Masterton man Ross Taylor has transformed himself from an all-guns-blazing batsman to one who can stick around and score runs. After his six-hour innings of 184 off 296 balls for Central Districts in the drawn State Championship cricket match against Wellington which endedat Fitzherbert Park on Monday, Taylor, 21, is convinced he's on the right track. He hopes that track leads him, in time, to the New Zealand team. Last week at New Plymouth, he scored 78 against Canterbury off 110 balls, which is snail's pace for a young man who has a liking to hit the ball hard ? and often. Taylor thinks he is beginning to unravel the secrets of success at first-class level. "In my last two innings I have worked out how to play the four-day game," he said. "I'm still learning. It's satisfying to know you can get a century at this level." His 184, his maiden first-class century, against Wellington was the 10th highest innings by a Central Districts batsman of all time. A former New Zealand under-19 batsman and a Central Districts representative since 2002, Taylor has long been noted for banging the ball into and over grandstands. But yesterday, he struck only four sixes and such was his assurance when on 184 at lunch it seemed inevitable he'd caress his way to a double century as his former flatmate, Wellington's Jesse Ryder, had done last Saturday. But on the last ball of the first over after lunch, Pakistani Azhar Abbas tempted him with a wide delivery and former New Zealand one-day representative Chris Nevin took the catch. "I should've left it," Taylor said. "Obviously batting time was critical because there was a long way to go in the game." Because Central Districts were scrambling to overhaul Wellington's first innings score of 590 for eight, Taylor was not as excited about his maiden century as he normally would have been. ? NZPA
