'Too polite to turn us down': Ross Taylor reveals moment when he and Johan Botha asked Rahul Dravid out for coffee

In his autobiography titled Black & White, which was released on Thursday, retired Test batter Ross Taylor had recently revealed that he had faced racism from his teammates during his 16-year career.

Ross Taylor retired from international cricket in April this year, playing his last match for the Black Caps in an ODI against the Netherlands.

In another chapter of the same autobiography, Taylor revealed an interesting incident when he and former South Africa spinner Johan Botha were sitting next to Rahul Dravid, the current India head coach, during breakfast in Jaipur. Taylor and Botha then happened to ask Dravid for a coffee, and although Dravid was reluctant, they still persuaded Dravid to tag along.

“The South African off-spinner Johan Botha and I were sitting next to Rahul Dravid at breakfast in Jaipur. We asked him if he wanted to go for a coffee; he didn’t really, but we twisted his arm. We got a cab to a five-storeyed mall. We hadn’t taken any security with us, which was naive. Within two minutes the mall was packed – there were at least 4000 people – and we had to get mall security to extract us,” Taylor stated in his autobiography.

The 38-year-old Taylor then went on to elaborate how Dravid showed ‘his class’, going on to add that in a city like Mumbai, the situation would have been better, but on the contrary in Jaipur, big-name cricketers were not seen that often.

“I’m sure Rahul saw it coming, but he was too polite to turn us down. “Botes” and I were profusely apologetic on the way back to the hotel. Rahul played it down with his usual class, saying we probably would’ve been okay in a bigger city like Mumbai but, in the smaller cities, they didn’t see big-name cricketers that often. Jaipur’s population is around four million. After that, coffee with Dravid was always in the hotel,” Taylor added.

Ross Taylor, born in Wellington, has played 112 Tests, 236 ODIs and 102 T20Is for New Zealand, where he has amassed 7683, 8607and 1909 runs in the three formats respectively. Taylor was part of the New Zealand team that won the inaugural ICC World Test Championship that beat India in the final in June 2021.

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