5 Cricketers who played for other countries and then came back

2. Brendan Taylor

Brendan Ross Murray Taylor is Zimbabwe’s former captain who led their campaign in the 2015 World Cup. He is among those players who were given a chance after the 2004 protests against the Zimbabwe Cricket Board. He was drafted to the side at the age of 18 years as a middle-order batsman who could bowl some handy off-spin.

Taylor made his debut against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka in 2004. His didn’t start the way he would’ve wanted to as he scored 6 runs from 46 balls in the first 3 games of the series. This included the game where Zimbabwe were bowled out for a humiliating total of 35, which is till date the lowest score ever in an ODI. He picked up some form in the 4th ODI as he scored 38 from 61 balls and was the second-highest scorer for the team in that game.

In the 5th match, he played a blistering knock of 74 but couldn’t push the inevitable, i.e., a 5-0 defeat in the ODI series. Taylor’s talent was indisputable but he was often accused of having a bad temperament on the field as he threw his wickets away on a number of occasions after getting starts. He came in as a good batsman every now and then but lacked consistency.

Taylor was selected for the 2007 World Cup but failed to leave any mark there. The very same year, the first-ever edition of the T20 World Cup was organised by the ICC and Taylor was selected for that as well. He had a pretty average tournament there as well except for an excellent knock of 60 against Australia, while Zimbabwe successfully chased down 139.

Post the 2007 World Cup, Taylor also started keeping wickets for Zimbabwe in the absence of the regular keeper Tatenda Taibu. He was appointed the captain of the team after the 2011 World Cup which really surged his performance. He started scoring against the big guns and made a record by scoring consecutive centuries against New Zealand, the first Zimbabwe batsman to ever do it.

He repeated the feat in the 2015 ODI World Cup as well and was their highest run-getter that season. Even after a successful World Cup with the bat, Taylor announced his retirement from Zimbabwe Cricket and shifted to Nottinghamshire. He was only 29 then. That didn’t work out for him as he would’ve planned and the right-hander failed to bag long term contracts with the county.

He was inconsistent in his performances and was accused of bad behaviour on and off the field. Failing to leave a mark, the ex-skipper returned to Zimbabwe in 2017 and came out of his retirement. To this date, Taylor has represented Zimbabwe in 31 Tests, 199 ODIs and 42 T20Is and has scored 2055, 6530 and 834 runs in each format respectively.