W.hen James Taylor describes Grace Road as “a place close to my heart,” it’s hard not to return to the moment, eight years ago, that changed his life forever.
The terrifying illness that occurred during a preseason game in Cambridge sounds like a theoretical notion from a medical textbook: arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, which in simple terms affects the beating of the heart.
However, for Taylor, who had just taken part in England’s triumphant Test series in South Africa and was making a name for himself in the one-day team, its consequences were real and devastating.
Overnight, physical effort was out of the question. At the age of 26, he was – just like that – a former cricketer.
The fact that he has since forged a successful career off the field says everything about his sunny outlook, including coaching roles with England Under-19s and Northamptonshire, and three years as understudy to national selector Ed Smith.
James Taylor batting for England’s ODI team against Sri Lanka in the 2015 World Cup
And he begins the 2024 season as the new assistant coach of Leicestershire, who gave him his first opportunity as a teenager 16 years ago.
“I’m lucky,” he tells Sportsmail. —My wife told me the other night: I have never felt sorry for myself. The worst thing she could have done is ask “why me?”
Even now, the details of his brush with death that day in 2016 inspire equal parts awe and horror. When he arrived at Nottingham hospital, his heart was beating at 265 beats per minute, almost four and a half per second.
Astonished doctors said most victims would have been unconscious within 10 minutes, but Taylor, one of the fittest cricketers on the circuit, was still wide awake after six hours, despite experiencing tension in his heart rate equivalent to running five marathons.
A couple of months later, he was fitted with an internal defibrillator and almost cheerfully reveals that he will soon need another complex operation to change the batteries.
He seems happy to be alive, grateful for a second chance at a sport he loves. However, for a couple of years he was leading a diluted existence, a life lurking in the shadows.
‘People just see the outside version: if you’re smiling, then you’re cool. But you can’t sleep on your left side because you feel every heartbeat.
Taylor in hospital after arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy first appeared in 2016
‘Every time you cross the street, you guess what will happen if you shuffle your feet a little fast. Every time I walked up a flight of stairs I thought I was going to have a heart attack. The first six months I was very cold because my circulation had been affected.’
And it took some time to get used to the machinery now inside him, designed to restart his heart if it loses rhythm.
Once, in Antigua, the defibrillator went off after reacting to a balloon bomb – Taylor’s “scariest moment” yet.
On another occasion, he felt stressed after arriving late to give a talk at Grace Road. When he came on stage, his heart rate was 130 beats. He soon surpassed 300, which activated the mechanism.
“My heart started working again in front of a few hundred people,” he says. ‘You could also hear it on the microphone: imagine the noise. Even now, if I hear a loud bang, it brings me back to that moment.’
So how did a fitness junkie adapt to a life where adrenaline and excitement could prove fatal? The answer was golf, which allowed him several hours of non-strenuous exercise. He has also started doing 5k parkruns, pushing his two-year-old daughter in a stroller and “shuffling around in 27 or 28 minutes”.
Many runners without heart disease or with a small child in tow would be happy with a moment like that.
Taylor wants to use his perspective to ‘mentor’ and help Leicestershire cricketers
“My biggest challenge is having to slow down when I want to go faster,” he says. ‘When it goes above 100, it can get out of control. So I just relax.’
Taylor’s equanimity is remarkable. ‘I have loved learning about my new body. I have always thought about what I can do, not what I can’t. The last eight years have been pretty scary at times, but I’ve loved it. It sounds crazy.
“It’s the best thing I’ve ever done – mentally I’ve been good as gold, and that should never be the case when something turns your world upside down.” The only thing I have done in my life is exercise and run. And now I can’t. I think you’re a different cat if you can deal with that.
Taylor now wants to use his perspective to help Leicestershire’s cricketers, who start the summer on a high after winning the Metro Bank Over-50s One-Day Cup in September and pushing for promotion in the Championship. county.
Above all, he wants to be a “mentor.”
And he can draw on plenty of experience from his playing days, most notably when Kevin Pietersen slighted him after making 147 with him on his Test debut against South Africa at Headingley in 2012.
“Her father was a jockey,” Pietersen said of the 5-foot-6 Taylor, “and James is cut out for the same job.” We were facing the fiercest attack in world cricket. I didn’t think he was willing to do it.
Taylor begins 2024 season as new assistant coach at Leicestershire
As if in response, Taylor could boast a daily average of 53, a figure surpassed at the time of his retirement only by Michael Bevan, AB de Villiers and Cheteshwar Pujara.
“In your career you develop coping mechanisms,” he says. ‘Not getting as many runs as you wanted, missing a catch or having someone tell you you’re not as good as you think. Everything I have learned from cricket has put me in a good position to deal with this.
‘I don’t have too many regrets, because it’s a dangerous place to look back and say, “What if?” Don’t get me wrong, he would have played a lot more games for England and earned a lot more money. But I see it as an opportunity to learn. It really helped me that my head went in that direction. “We move forward and look forward.”
Another metaphor seems inevitable: despite everything, it is a story to warm the heart.