Tavaré was born at Orpington in Kent and educated at Sevenoaks School and St John's College, Oxford, where he graduated with a degree in zoology.
[7] At Perth in 1982 he made "an eight-hour 89, 60 minutes of which were entirely scoreless", although he did also make a more important and relatively rapid 89 in the Melbourne test narrowly won by England,[8] also parrying the victory clinching chance for Geoff Miller to catch.
[9] In many of these Test matches at this stage Tavaré was pressed to open the innings due to the suspension of Graham Gooch, Geoff Boycott and Wayne Larkins from international cricket due to their participation in a rebel tour of South Africa, opening the batting rarely being Tavaré's position for Kent.
Tavaré averaged over 40 in a 1983 Test series against New Zealand, but was dropped after England's embarrassing defeat at Christchurch that winter in which he made 9 runs.
Tavaré put himself back in the selectors' thoughts with an impressive televised unbeaten century, for which he was again made man of the match in a losing cause, in a Benson & Hedges Cup semi-final against Essex.
Tavaré was unable to repeat his earlier success at frustrating Australian bowlers and was dismissed for two in what proved to be his final test innings.