Zimbabwe veteran Brendan Taylor has gone past Sachin Tendulkar to become the longest-serving player in men’s ODI history after taking the field in the first ODI against Australia in Harare on Tuesday.Taylor’s ODI career now spans 22 years and four months, moving him ahead of Tendulkar, whose ODI career lasted 22 years and three months before he retired from the format in 2012.Tendulkar, however, still holds the record for the most ODI runs with 18,426 and the most appearances in the format with 463 matches.Taylor, 40, made his ODI debut in 2004 and has gone on to become one of Zimbabwe’s leading batters. Going into Tuesday’s match, he had scored a national-record 11 ODI centuries in 207 matches.Taylor retired from international cricket in 2021, but in 2022 he was handed a three-and-a-half-year ban for breaching the ICC’s Anti-Corruption and Anti-Doping codes.After completing his suspension, he came out of retirement in 2025 as Zimbabwe began preparing to co-host the 2027 ODI World Cup with South Africa and Namibia.Meanwhile, Australia won the toss on Tuesday and decided to bat in their first one-day cricket international in Zimbabwe in 12 years.Australian captain Mitchell Marsh is one of the three survivors in both teams to have played in the last ODI in Zimbabwe which the host team won. Zimbabwe skipper Sikandar Raza and Brendan Taylor are the other two players, who did compete in that famous Zimbabwe victory in 2014.Lineups:Australia: Mitchell Marsh (captain), Travis Head, Cooper Connolly, Josh Inglis, Alex Carey, Matt Renshaw, Ollie Peake, Xavier Bartlett, Nathan Ellis, Adam Zampa, Spencer Johnson.Zimbabwe: Brian Bennett, Ben Curran, Innocent Kaia, Brendan Taylor, Craig Ervine, Sikandar Raza (captain), Wessly Madhevere, Brad Evans, Newman Nyamhuri, Wellington Masakadza, Blessing Muzarabani.FOLLOW LIVE UPDATES
