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Hesson and Taylor’s relationship is still on the mend
The Ross Taylor captaincy controversy made headlines all over the cricketing world and could easily be viewed as one of the most tense moments in the New Zealand cricket camp this year by far, but after sitting down and solving all their problems, head coach Mike Hesson believes the incident has actually benefited him, whereby he feels as if he has become a better coach altogether.
The whole issue between Taylor and Hesson started after New Zealand’s tour of Sri Lanka late last year when Hesson was planning to make wicketkeeper-batsman Brendon McCullum the captain of the limited overs squads and leave Taylor in charge of the Test team, but this did not sit well with Taylor, who decided to give up the captaincy altogether and miss New Zealand’s tour of South Africa.
“I learned a lot during the whole experience and it might make me a better coach,” Hesson told ESPNcricinfo.
According to Hesson, the Taylor incident taught him about the challenges of appeasing every player, the errors he had made and about the holes in his coaching ideology as well.
When asked if he believes removing Taylor as captain was a huge mistake, Hesson said: “Whenever you make a decision like changing a captain it is difficult decision to make. All I want to say is at no stage during that process you want to upset anybody or put someone in a difficult situation. That obviously occurred, which was unfortunate.”
It has been nearly seven months since relations between Taylor and Hesson broke down, but according to Hesson, his frosty relationship with the flamboyant batsman is on the mend.
“We certainly are developing our relationship nicely,” Hesson said. “The circumstances have been well documented. We have been working well together.”
Hesson also noted that the entire team seemed to do better if Taylor were to play an outstanding knock since it would allow them to free their arms a little more instead of being extremely cautious.
“Ross is a huge part of our group,” Hesson said. “He is our premier batsman and he has performed very well in England in the past. We are a far better team when Ross Taylor is in the team and performing well. It is great to have him back.
“It is important for Ross to impose himself. He is quite an imposing batsman. Once he has got that level of confidence he is actually quite hard to bowl to. So it is matter of getting the confidence, getting that imposing nature at the crease. And also he works with some of younger batsmen as well. So the more comfortable he can feel about his own game the more comfortable he will feel helping others.”