Taylor played for Hampshire's Second XI in 1993 at the age of 18, and the following year captained a National Association of Young Cricketers side against Minor Counties.
Taylor's next List A game, in the first round of the same competition in August 2002 (though because of the vagaries of the fixture list, this was in fact the start of the 2003 competition), saw him playing for Buckinghamshire, and making by far his highest score at this level: 140 in a huge total of 424/5 which set up a crushing 230-run triumph over Suffolk at Dinton.
His first innings was exactly what the county had been hoping for: opening the batting he produced a whirlwind knock of 46 from 20 balls, making a major contribution towards Worcestershire's nail-biting one-wicket victory over Northamptonshire.
[1] However, he was not a success, with the only innings of real note being 29 against Middlesex in the totesport League: here he added 69 with Hassan Adnan after Derbyshire had slumped to 48/3.
This proved to be Taylor's final innings for the county, however, since he was sacked by Houghton, who said that he had expected "fireworks rather than Polyfilla".