Taylor is convinced someone lied about the entire captaincy dispute

Former New Zealand captain Ross Taylor has announced that head coach Mike Hesson’s depiction of how he quit the captaincy is completely false

Hesson stated that at the end of the Sri Lanka series, Taylor was advised to step aside from captaining the limited overs squads, while still maintaining his leadership role of the Test side.

However, Taylor disputes this and noted that Hesson’s recollection of the event did not match his own.

“He said I wasn’t a good enough leader, that this team needs a strong leader and that I wasn’t a strong leader,” Taylor told Radio Sport. “If I wasn’t a strong leader why would he give me the Test captaincy?

“He said ‘Ross, I am going to recommend to [NZC director of cricket] John Buchanan that we have a new captain for South Africa’. There was nothing in there about anything to do with a split captaincy.”

Taylor mentioned that he only heard about the possibility of retaining the reigns of the Test squad after the conclusion of the two-Test series against Sri Lanka, which ended as a 1-1 draw after New Zealand won the second Test in Colombo.

When asked if someone was lying about the whole event, Taylor simply said: “Definitely.”

Since batsman Brendon McCullum took over the captaincy, Taylor has revealed that he was never supported by Hesson ever since he replaced John Wright as head coach last July.

The former captain also reiterated his reasons for backing out of the South Africa series.

“I don’t think I could have given 100%,” he said. “It has been a pretty stressful time for me, especially the last two or three weeks but the last five months have been pretty tough on myself.

“It’s still pretty fresh in my mind. I think I got straight back on the horse by not turning down the captaincy in Galle and leading the team to that victory … It would have been easy for a person in my position to just give it up there and then, but I decided that the best thing for the team was to carry on.

“The team will be better without me and all the distractions that have happened in the last couple of weeks.”