To most Australians, it is selfless gestures like that that truly make him a role model. In an age when international competition–including the Olympics–is mired in drug and corruption scandals, Taylor, 34, represents the old-time sportsman who is decent, honest and humble. He earns a modest living and doesn’t promote shoes that kids can’t afford. He visits children in the hospital and is a cofounder of the Sporting Chance, a charity that raises funds for cancer research. The Australia Day Council, the official organizer of the country’s national-day events, named Taylor the Australian of the Year for 1999. ““He’s the bloke you’d want next to you in the trenches,’’ says his manager, John Fordham.
Taylor is leaving at a time when the game needs him more than ever. Cricket’s reputation for fairness and gentility–in no other contest do the combatants break for tea–has recently been soiled by scandal. Pakistani captain Wasim Akram stands accused of offering bribes to players on opposing teams to throw matches. (Akram denies the allegations and has not been formally charged.) Australian cricketers Shane Warne and Mark Waugh took thousands of dollars in secret payments from an Indian bookmaker for giving the bookie reports on the weather and playing conditions before matches. (The stars were fined.) And batsman Ricky Ponting recently earned a three-match suspension–in addition to a black eye–for joining in a barroom brawl.
Behavior on the field is not much better. Cricket’s version of trash talking, known as ““sledging,’’ is rampant, with players screaming epithets at the batter to distract him. During a one-day match against England, the Sri Lankan team loudly insulted an umpire who made an unfavorable call; the Sri Lankans then walked off the field. And the players are not the only ones acting up. Increasingly, cricket fans are growing indistinguishable from football hooligans; at a cricket match in Sydney last month, police expelled dozens of fans for starting the ““Mexican wave,’’ which is forbidden because participants hold cups of beer while they throw up their arms. Competing fans routinely try to out-taunt each other. The Aussies call English players ““wankers,’’ while England’s supporters (known in Australia as the ““Barmy Army’’) have been heard chanting: ““I can’t read, I can’t write, I must be Australian!''
Taylor insists his decision to retire has nothing to do with the rising noise level of the game. He says he is leaving to spend more time with his sons. Cricket is ““going well,’’ he says. ““The crowds this year in Australia are second to none.’’ They will keep coming now that their national hero is gone, but they won’t have nearly as much to cheer about.
