Cricket: Ben Taylor returns to Manilla and Bective East after spending 2022 in Queensland

The Canberra native and former under 19 Australian cricketer landed in Manilla early in 2021, before playing the second half of the cricket season and taking on a pivotal role in Bective East's progression through to the 2021/22 Tamworth first grade grand final.

But, as is so often the case, life intervened and provided Taylor and his partner, Kate, an opportunity to work on a cattle station in far north Queensland that neither could refuse.

"I [spent the last year] in Bowen in far north Queensland," Taylor said.

"It was just an opportunity that came up, and my partner and I went up there for the year to do something different and work on a large-scale property."

There was no time frame when they left, but after a year Taylor felt they had "got what we wanted" out of the experience.

The pair knew they would return to Manilla when they finished up in Queensland - Kate is a product of the town - and Taylor said they were moving back "permanently".

"It's a pretty nice landscape, the country's pretty nice," he said.

"There's some good people that I've met and it feels like a homey town. I'm enjoying my sport and my social life, it's just the sort of place I want to be long-term."

And like their decision to settle in Manilla, Taylor never had a second thought about reuniting with Bective.

"It was always going to be them," he said.

"I knew Abel Carney before I started playing there last season, and Luke Scicluna's been very good to me in terms of helping me out with a few work things.

"I've made some good mates there, there was never any doubt which club I was going to play for."

With 216 runs at 43.2 and 17 wickets at just shy of 10 runs each in 2021/22, Bective captain Jye Paterson hopes Taylor can pick up where he left off this weekend in the T20 against North Tamworth.

"He's a massive in with bat, ball, and in the field," Paterson said.

"But more than that, it's the confidence he brings to the team as well. Everyone lifts when you know you've got Benny around, it brings a bit of confidence in the team and puts a bit more pressure on the other teams.

"He's just got to do what he does normally, that's all we ask for."

But Taylor has scarcely played any cricket since he left early this year, and said he was "a bit rusty" in a couple of hit-outs at the nets over the last week, which he hopes to remedy at training.

That, however, has not doused his eagerness to get back on the field.

"Watching the start of the Big Bash and the test summer, that gets the competitive energy flowing a little bit," Taylor said.

"We were pretty flat out with work before Christmas so it's hard to think about, but now that I've had some time to settle down and chill out, I'm getting keen again."

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