Only John Wright (12 centuries) and Glenn Turner (seven) sit ahead of Latham in the list of New Zealand's most prolific test openers.
Only Wright (three times) and Latham have made centuries at the Basin for New Zealand since the opening test on the ground in 1929-30, when Stewie Dempster and Jack Mills completed the feat. Eleven visiting openers have done it over the same period.
It's a bizarre statistic but Taylor reckoned the Basin "isn't an easy place to open".
"To go out with that new ball is always going to be one of the hardest periods to bat.
"For him to come out and bat as positively as he did took a lot of pressure off the incoming batsmen. Still, his job's not done."
At 24, Latham's stature within the squad is growing. "In our conditions an opener and a No 3 are very important," Taylor said.
"For a while, apart from Mark Richardson, we've been to-ing and fro-ing with a lot of openers. Tom put his hand up and he's one of the first [players] picked.
"We have a world class No 3 [Kane Williamson] and we've got a consistent opener in Tom.
He's still young but he's earning his stripes in the team and he batted outstandingly well today."
Taylor, in his first test back after his left eye surgery, looked in sparkling touch, too. But at 40 he pulled a short ball straight to mid wicket. He wasn't impressed with that, but admitted he felt good and confident at the crease. "It's too early to say I noticed the difference," he said. "But if you can feel confident when you're batting you get the right results.
"At the start of my innings in the last couple of years I've struggled. Just waiting to bat [I've been] trying to be a bit more stand up and walk around and try to adjust to the light as quick as possible."
It's fair to say he's found the results of that approach are working.
