Hyderabad: Now retired New Zealand's Ross Taylor has made serious revelations in his autobiography where he has alleged that he was slapped by one of the owners of Rajasthan Royals after getting out on a duck. This incident, according to him, happened in one of the IPL matches against Kings XI Punjab, now called Punjab Kings, which the Rajasthan team lost while chasing a stiff target of 195.
Read: Ross Taylor reveals accounts of racism in New Zealand cricket through his autobiography
One of the chapters of his book titled 'Black and White' reads, "Rajasthan played Kings XI Punjab in Mohali. The chase was 195, I was lbw for a duck and we didn’t get close. Afterwards, the team, support staff and management were in the bar on the top floor of the hotel. Liz Hurley was there with Warnie. 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."
Earlier, Taylor had revealed accounts of racism in New Zealand cricket where he described the game of cricket "a pretty white sport" and that he experienced racism inside dressing rooms which was termed "banter".
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"Given that the Polynesian community is dramatically under-represented in the game, it's probably no surprise that people sometimes assume I'm Maori or Indian. Having studied racism in the media at university as part of a sports degree, Victoria probably noticed things that many others didn't. For instance, it used to upset her that my bad shots were often put down to "brain explosions" or "dumb cricket" whereas other players' bad shots were "lapses in concentration" or "poor shot selection", or excused on the basis that, "Well, that's the way he plays," said Taylor.
Taylor had retired from international cricket in April this year, featuring for the side in 112 Tests, 236 ODIs and 102 T20Is.
