Michael Norman Somerset Taylor was an English first-class cricketer who played mainly for Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club and Hampshire County Cricket Club in a career that spanned the 1964 and 1980 seasons and included 375 first-class and 226 limited overs matches. Taylor was born at Amersham, Buckinghamshire. At the age of 15 he was being coached at Chesham Cricket Club by the ex-Derbyshire bowler Alf Pope. Taylor was a right-handed batsman and a right-arm medium pace bowler. He made his first-class debut for Nottinghamshire in 1964 and played there until 1972, when he was not offered a new contract, despite playing in 230 matches with a batting average of 18.01 and 522 wickets at 27.88. In that final season, he played in a Gillette Cup match against Hampshire at Trent Bridge, taking 2-39 in 12 overs and top-scoring with 58, and when they learned of his release, Hampshire signed him. He had an immediate impact, for in 1973 he took 64 first-class wickets at 21.71, and scored 507 runs at 24.14, to help his new county to their second title. His bowling figures were even better in 1974 when they were foiled by the weather in the search for a second successive Championship, and through the 1970s he proved himself one of the best of Hampshire’s signings from another county. In addition to his fine medium-pace bowling he scored his first century for the county in 1977, and there was another in 1978. In that season, age 35, he was a member of the Hampshire side that won the Sunday League, as he had been in 1975. He retired at the end of the 1980 season and became Hampshire’s Assistant Secretary and then Marketing Manager, not least during the demanding 1990s in the move to the Rose Bowl. He took 308 first-class wickets for Hampshire at 24.21, plus 162 limited-overs wickets at 25.70 and an economy rate below four runs per over. His best bowling was 7-23 v his former county Nottinghamshire at Basingstoke in 1977. He retired from the office in 2002, after 30 years with his ‘new’ county. Across 11 English Winters from 1966-1979, he coached three seasons for the Transvaal Cricket Union and eight for Jeppe High Schools for Boys, both based in Johannesburg. He also played one season for Pilkington Glass C.C in Springs, and five seasons for E.R.P.M.East Rand Propriety Mines in Boksburg. Both these clubs were situated in what was the Northern Transvaal and he played one match for NT in the List A Datsun Shield v Rhodesia. Mike Taylor is the twin brother of Derek Taylor, the Somerset wicket-keeper.
