"Rajasthan Royals Co-Owner Slapped Me Across The Face 3 Or 4 Times After Getting Out On A Duck" - Ross Taylor On An Incident With Rajasthan Royals Owners
Former New Zealand cricketer Ross Taylor revealed that he had a strange meeting with a Rajasthan Royals owner back during his IPL playing days.
Taylor said that he couldn’t perform well for a period of time and during one of the meetings in a hotel, an owner ‘playfully’ slapped him across the face thrice.
“When you go to a new team, you don’t get that backing. You never feel comfortable because you know that if you go two or three games without a score, you come under cold-eyed scrutiny,” wrote Taylor in his autobiography ‘Ross Taylor: Black & White’.
“A case in point: Rajasthan played Kings XI Punjab in Mohali. The chase was 195, I was lbw for a duck and we didn’t get close. Afterward, the team, support staff and management were in the bar on the top floor of the hotel. Liz Hurley was there with Warnie.”
“We didn’t pay you a million dollars to get a duck” – RR owner to Ross Taylor
Taylor said that he was surprised and didn’t expect such an incident to occur, especially in a sporting environment at the highest level.
“One of the Royals owners said to me, “Ross, we didn’t pay you a million dollars to get a duck” and slapped me across the face three or four times.”
“He was laughing and they weren’t hard slaps but I’m not sure that it was entirely play-acting. Under the circumstances, I wasn’t going to make an issue of it, but I couldn’t imagine it happening in many professional sporting environments,” he added.
Taylor played 55 matches in the IPL and scored 1017 runs, including three fifties.
