Taylor's harrowing heart-attack tale

Former England batsman James Taylor has revealed the terrifying extent of the heart problems that forced his retirement at the age of 26.

Taylor's career ended in 2016 when he was diagnosed with a serious but previously undiagnosed heart condition that could have been fatal.

He has written in harrowing detail about the day his symptoms came on while warming up with Nottinghamshire in his autobiography 'Cut Short', which is being serialised in England's Daily Telegraph.

Taylor was throwing balls preparing for a match against Cambridge University when the symptoms struck and the batsman knew something was very wrong.

"I turned to my teammate Brendan Taylor. 'My ticker’s f----d,' I told him. 'My ticker’s f----d'," Taylor wrote.

"I walked off to the changing rooms. My heart was now going what felt a million miles an hour. I could actually see my chest moving, my skin expanding and contracting, fit to burst. It looked so unnatural. It made me feel sick to see it.

"I was gasping for air, sucking it in. I was feeling so, so sick. I made it into the toilet and stuck my head in the pan, desperately trying to vomit. Nothing would come. Nottinghamshire physio Jon Alty dragged me out. It hadn’t been flushed and was no place for anyone to be putting their face.

"I was trying to tell him about my heart but I could barely breathe. I just wanted to pass out. That would be a way of escaping it. I really did think I was on the way out."

Taylor was pulled out of the match and returned to Nottingham in the company of Australia fast bowler Jackson Bird, who was with the club at the time.

Taylor made it back to Nott's Trent Bridge venue, where he curled up on the pavilion floor, eventually found there by his mother.

"Just a few weeks earlier, I'd been scoring runs and taking miracle catches for England in South Africa. Now I was a hunched, grey, hollow figure on the verge of death," Taylor wrote of his deteriorating condition.

"By 4pm, I was feeling progressively worse and getting pains down my left arm. Looking back, it's obvious – it's the sign of a heart attack. I shouldn't have been alive at that stage. With my body concentrating all it had on my vital organs, my stomach was already giving up."

Having been told to go straight to the hospital and not wait for an ambulance, Taylor was assessed by doctors where the extent of his health problems were put in horrifying perspective when he was connected to a heart rate monitor.

"The sound it made was like nothing you’ll ever hear. A cavalcade of beeps, fast ricocheting around the room. It was the sound of my heart, charging, careering, thundering. A runaway train trapped within my ribs," Taylor wrote.

"The machine said it was pounding at 265 beats a minute. The doctors looked at one another. Strangely, it’s the little things you notice at a time like that, and the expression on their faces – shock, disbelief – is something I won’t forget.

"When the heart is under stress it releases an enzyme called troponin. Under no stress, the amount of troponin in the blood would be zero. My level was 42,000."

Astonished doctors told Taylor his heart had been through the equivalent of running six marathons.

"My sheer fitness had saved me. Anyone else wouldn't have had a chance," he wrote.

"The day, my heart, the future – there were so many unanswered questions, so much to deal with. It was the first time I'd ever felt real fear – raw, unbridled fear."

Taylor was diagnosed with a rare and serious heart condition called arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. He had successful surgery and is restricted to minor physical activity. He is an occasional caller on the BBC's cricket coverage and is working with the ICC to encourage volunteers for next year's World Cup.