Flashback: Only Test debutant to make a century and take a five-for

Contributing to your team heavily with both bat and ball is an extraordinary achievement. Scoring runs and picking up wickets helps a team immensely and every player wishes to do so. Hitting a century and snaring five scalps is an even rarer and exceptional accomplishment and Bruce Taylor grabbed this feat in his first-ever match.

Taylor is the only cricketer to score a century and pick a five-wicket haul on debut in the history of Test cricket. During the second of the four-match series, Taylor reached this double milestone against India in Kolkata in the year 1964. The Kiwis batted first and posted 462/9d thanks to centuries from Taylor and Bert Sutcliffe and a half-century from captain John Reid. Having not been selected in the first match, Taylor made his mark in the drawn second game.

The left-handed batter Taylor, who batted at no. 8, smashed 105 in 158 minutes with the help of 14 fours and three maximums. He shared a 163-run partnership with Sutcliffe, who made an unbeaten 151. He then backed his solid batting performance with the ball as the right-arm fast-medium bowler claimed a five-wicket haul including scalps of Indian skipper Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, Chandu Borde, Bapu Nadkarni, and Farokh Engineer.

Taylor delivered a spell of 23.5 overs in which he gave away 86 runs which also included two maidens. The match got drawn and Taylor etched his name into the history books. He played only 30 Test matches for the Kiwis and scored 898 runs at an average of 20.40. Born on July 12, 1943, in Timaru, Canterbury, Taylor struck two centuries and two fifties with the highest score of 124 in 50 innings in the longest format. He breathed his last on February 06, 2021, aged 77y 209d.