Mirror twins: The Taylor twins blazing a cricketing path

Interviewing cricketers Mary and Millie Taylor is like seeing double.

The 20-year-old identical twins are so alike that even Georgia Adams - who has coached them since they were 11, played alongside them at Sussex, and now captains Mary at Hampshire - still struggles to tell them apart.

Growing up attending Bede's School, the sisters would sometimes even swap lessons - a trick which went undetected by their teachers.

But their teammates on the cricket pitch have an advantage: once they both pick up a cricket ball, it is suddenly easy to work out who is who.

Mary is a right-arm seamer, while Millie is the only professional female in the country to bowl left-arm wrist-spin. Along with 25% of all identical twins, they are "mirror twins" - literally mirror images of each other.

Like many siblings, it was back-garden rivalry which dictated their early years in cricket.

"I've always been a seamer, because I've always been, 'Mills, go down there and I'll try and take your head off'," Mary says, seconds after denying the suggestion that she is the bossier twin.

"That's why I started out as a keeper," Millie agrees.

Where did Millie get the idea to bowl left-arm leg spin? "Our brother Henry bowls right-arm leg-spin," Millie says. "And as a little one, I just looked at it, and I was like, that must be how you play. So I copied his action. I'm naturally hypermobile anyway."

Nowadays, both are professional cricketers and fresh from a month representing Birmingham Phoenix in The Hundred. But when asked about playing on the biggest domestic stage, Mary is wistful: "It feels like that back garden again."

For years, the sisters did everything together, playing at Eastbourne Cricket Club and representing Sussex, as well as keeping each other sane and match fit through the Covid lockdowns.

But last winter, the cruel realities of professional sport forced them apart for the first time ever.

Amid the restructure of women's domestic cricket, Mary was handed a contract at Hampshire. Meanwhile Millie - stuck representing Southern Vipers Academy after her sister graduated onto a full Vipers contract at the end of 2023 - waited nervously to hear her own fate.

When an offer finally came in, it was one which would require her moving 200 miles away from the family home in Eastbourne to Birmingham, to play for Warwickshire.

"Our agent contacted all the counties," Millie recalls. "And then a contract finally came through and I was like, 'is there any other option? Has a closer county offered me anything?' And he went, 'no'.

"There was a bit of umming and ahhing because it was so far away. I didn't go to uni, so I've never moved away from home."

Mary had spent the 2024 season watching Millie wracked with self-doubt about whether she would ever follow her sister into professional cricket.

"She was traveling around the country to watch me, and there'd be days where our coaches and myself and my mum and dad and my brother would have to pick her up and be like, 'no, this is what you want to do,'" Mary remembers.

So when the offer from Warwickshire came in, Mary pushed Millie to take the plunge.

"I made her a pros and cons list, and there were about 60 pros, and about two cons. One con was leaving me, and the other one was leaving Mum and Dad.

"I was very much, 'go for it, Mills, this is a great opportunity to start your career'."

After a winter coming to terms with being apart, this season has created its own challenges.

Last month, the pair were reunited in The Hundred - but only Millie was selected in the Phoenix starting XI, with Mary left on the bench.

"I was absolutely ecstatic when I saw my name," Millie says. "But I had to stay quite level, because I was happy, but obviously, I was upset that I wouldn't be getting to play with Mary."

"When the team came through, I was a little bit like, 'I told you so'," Mary says. "I said, 'right, don't worry about me, I'm going to be fine, you need to go and bowl everyone out, off you go'."

By the time Mary forced her own way into the starting XI, her sister had sustained a broken finger - an injury which has sadly put a premature end to her first season as a pro.

Spare a thought, too, for their parents, who have clocked up hundreds of miles trying to get to as many of their daughters' respective matches as possible.

"Mum hid behind a tree when we were playing each other," Mary says. "She always gets so nervous - especially when Millie had to bowl at me at Edgbaston [during the Women's Vitality Blast].

"Then again, my heart was racing at that. I was like, she's only got two more balls in her spell, I've just got to not get out!"

Mary survived - but Warwickshire won the match, and went on to reach Blast Finals Day.

Millie was the competition's leading wicket-taker - but with Hampshire poised to reach the first ever Metro Bank Women's One Day Cup final in Southampton on 21 September, Mary denies that her sister has this season's bragging rights.

One thing is for sure: the rivalry which originated in that Eastbourne back garden is still very much a driving force for these two mirror twins.

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