Les Taylor (cricketer)
English Test and County cricketer (born 1953)
Leslie Brian Taylor (born 25 October 1953) is an English former cricketer who played in two Test matches against Australia in 1985. His first-class cricket was played for Leicestershire and in South Africa for Natal.
The cricket writer Colin Bateman wrote: "His seam bowling was not pretty but it was hostile and effective, while his flailing batting was pure entertainment". His career was interrupted by a series of injuries.
Life and career
A former miner, Taylor's first-class cricket career started somewhat belatedly at the age of 23.
A solidly-built fast-medium bowler and a reliable county performer over many years, Taylor's chance of Test selection seemed to have gone when he received a three-year ban for joining the Graham Gooch-led rebel tour to South Africa in 1982, where he was the leading bowler with 11 wickets at 18.72 to his name.
After his two Test appearances in 1985, Taylor won selection to the winter tour to the West Indies, but was dubbed "Lord Lucan" by certain members of the press due to his lack of matches on tour and a passing visual resemblance to the "missing" aristocrat. Taylor appeared in just one One Day International on the tour, but was picked for a second on his return home in the series against India.
The highlight of his brief and modest international career was taking the wicket of Murray Bennett at the Oval in 1985. The wicket confirmed England's victory in the sixth test and thus their victory in the Ashes series that year.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Les Taylor (cricketer)” as english Test and County cricketer (born 1953). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6530026. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1985 and 1982.
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This entry incorporates text from “Les Taylor (cricketer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.