Latham's innings went past Mushfiqur Rahim's 219 not out as the top score recorded in test cricket in 2018 - and was the highest test innings since Karun Nair scored an unbeaten 303 for India in 2016.
By remaining unbeaten on 264, Latham passed Alastair Cook, who made an unbeaten 244 against Australia. Latham was also the first player to carry his bat through an innings of 500 runs or more.
First New Zealander to carry their bat in New Zealand
Latham was the second New Zealander to carry his bat through a completed innings - Glenn Turner did it twice, but both away from home - once in England in 1969, and the other in West Indies in 1972.
First New Zealander to carry their bat in both an ODI and a Test
Latham joins a rare club of players to have done both - Grant Flower, Saeed Anwar, Alec Stewart, Javed Omar, and now Latham.
The sixth-highest score in New Zealand test cricket history
The list now reads...
Highest test scores for New Zealand
Brendon McCullum – 302 v India, 2014 Martin Crowe – 299 v Sri Lanka, 1991 Ross Taylor – 290 v Australia, 2015 Stephen Fleming – 274* v Sri Lanka, 2003 Bryan Young – 267* v Sri Lanka, 1997 Tom Latham – 264* v Sri Lanka, 2018
The amount of minutes Latham spent at the crease in his mammoth effort – behind only Glenn Turner (704) and McCullum (775) in the list of longest innings in New Zealand test history.
19
Where Latham ranks on the all-time test New Zealand runscorers list after leaping past five players in one solitary innings. Latham started the test on 2503 test runs, and shot past Geoff Howarth (2531), Martin Guptill (2586), Jeremy Coney (2668), Mark Burgess (2684) and Bert Sutcliffe (2727), eventually finishing on 2767. Next in line? Mark Richardson.
0
The amount of minutes Latham has spent off the field in this test – having fielded for all of Sri Lanka's first innings, carrying his bat throughout New Zealand's 578, and then immediately coming back out onto the Basin Reserve to take his place in the slips for Sri Lanka's second turn at bat.
Is now Tom Latham's test batting average, after he started the day at 36.27. That puts him ninth on the all-time list, jumping ahead of Stephen Fleming for the time being, and level with Sutcliffe. Henry Nicholls - whose rich form continued today - is just outside the magic number, at 39.56, good for 12th all-time.