In contrast to his predecessor Allan Border, who acquired the nickname 'Captain Grumpy', Taylor won plaudits for his always cheerful and positive demeanour.

His successor, Steve Waugh, further honed the Australian team built by Border and Taylor and went on to set numerous records for victories as captain.

Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsman from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England.

[4] Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga.

[4] Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985–86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa.

He had a lean season in 1987–88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount,[8] helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70.

Standing in as NSW captain in place of the injured Geoff Lawson for the 1989–90 Sheffield Shield final in Sydney, Taylor scored 127 and 100.

[10][14] He found himself on the outer for the ODI triangular tournament, missing all eight of the preliminary matches before returning to score 41 and 71 as Australia won the finals 2–0.

He was selected for the squad for the 1992 Cricket World Cup held on home soil, and after Australia lost its first two matches, Taylor was recalled for his first ODI in 12 months.

[14][31] To make matters worse, Australia's first-choice pace pairing of Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes missed the tour due to injury.

[11][12] Beginning the 1994–95 season with 150 for NSW in a tour match against England,[41] Taylor followed up with 59 in an opening stand of 97 as Australia made 426 in the first innings to take the initiative in the First Test in Brisbane.

[42] Australia amassed a 259-run first innings lead, but Taylor, mindful of the Test match at Rawalpindi, became the first Australian captain since 1977–78 to not enforce the follow-on.

Last man out for 49 in a total of 116 in the first innings,[44] he defied a pitch that had begun to seam and swing after a shower and cloud cover as Australia narrowly avoided the follow on.

[44] In the second innings, he made a bold attempt at chasing a world record target of 449 by scoring 113, but Australia played for a draw after Slater and Taylor fell following a double-century stand.

[6][10] The southern hemisphere summer ended with a quadrangular tournament in New Zealand, where Australia won two of their three group matches to proceed to the final.

[11][12] The difficulty of Australia's task was increased when fast bowlers Craig McDermott and Damien Fleming went home injured at the start of the tour.

[51] Australia regained the Frank Worrell Trophy with an innings victory in the Fourth Test at Jamaica, with Taylor taking the winning catch from the bowling of Shane Warne.

[54] The Pakistan series began among a media circus when Salim Malik arrived with publicity focused on the bribery allegations which had surfaced a year earlier.

[61] The season hit a low point with the Sri Lankans which saw the teams refuse to shake hands at the end of the second final of the triangular series which Australia won 2–0.

[62] Later in the match, stump microphones showed Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy alleging that portly Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga was feigning injury and calling for a runner because of his lack of physical fitness.

[68] In 1996–97, Australia confirmed its ascendancy over the West Indies with a 3–2 series win,[69] but Taylor endured a poor season with the bat and failed to pass 50 in nine innings.

[11] The early 1997 tour to South Africa brought no upturn in Taylor's batting despite Australia's 2–1 victory in the series: he scored 80 runs at 16.00.

His performance prompted personal congratulations from Prime Minister John Howard and the team's management allowed the media a rare opportunity to enter the dressing room and interview Taylor.

Tactically, ODI cricket was transformed by Sri Lanka's World Cup success, when it employed the highly aggressive opening pair of Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana.

In the final over, Taylor equalled Bradman's Australian Test record when a shot to midwicket was barely stopped by Ijaz Ahmed, which reduced the scoring opportunity to a single run.

[89] At the end of the day's play, Taylor was encouraged by the media, the public and his teammates to attempt to break Brian Lara's world record score of 375.

However, Taylor declared the innings closed, opting to share the record with Bradman, and making the team's chances of winning the game paramount.

[90] He made 92 in the second innings, giving him the second highest Test match aggregate after English batsmen Graham Gooch, who scored 333 and 123 for a total of 456 against India at Lord's on 26 July 1990.

In total, he captained the side in 50 Tests, winning 26 and losing 13, a success rate unmatched in the previous fifty years except for Don Bradman and Viv Richards.

He mainly commentates on One Day International and Test matches in Australia until the network's final year of cricket telecasts, so he can now spend more time with his family.