Taylor says there was only one person close to him who managed to apply a small amount of pressure to bat on. Playing in his 98th Test and with almost a decade of international experience behind him, Taylor's teammates had unsurprisingly left their skipper alone to make his own decision. "I didn't want to send that message either so the more I thought about it, I came to the decision that the best thing I can do is declare (and) end up on the same score as Sir Donald, which I'm more than delighted with."
"But I thought if I did that I would then end up on 340 not out or something like that and I think people would have assumed that I'd batted on just for my own glory. Taylor was applauded off, unbeaten on 334, at stumps on day two // Getty "I think ideally I would have batted on for 20 minutes just to put their openers out in the field for 20 more minutes before we declared. I was thinking about what to do so I certainly didn't crash as well as I'd hoped. "I finally got to sleep at about 2 o'clock in the morning. "I spent hours that night contemplating what to do," Taylor told. The 33-year-old was wrestling with a decision that would help define his legacy and, more importantly to Taylor, have a huge influence on Australia's chances of winning the match and the series. The Aussie skipper had finished day two of the second Test against Pakistan unbeaten on 334 in his team's total of 4-599, level with Sir Donald Bradman's Australian record score, which had stood for over six decades.īut as an exhausted Taylor retired to his hotel room in the northern city of Peshawar, he quickly realised that a good night's sleep would elude him. Having batted for 12 hours across two days in temperatures that hovered in the mid-30s, Mark Taylor was physically and emotionally spent. Taylor declared the following morning, ensuring the two players would be forever linked by that famous number.
Australia's captain finished day two of the second Test against Pakistan on 334 not out, equalling the highest Test score of the legendary Sir Donald Bradman. On October 16 1998, Mark Taylor became just the fourth Australian to post a triple-century in Test cricket.
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