Playing for Canterbury, he made his first-class cricket debut against Central Districts in 2010 in the Plunket Shield.

Latham made his debut for Canterbury in the 2010–11 Plunket Shield season, scoring 65 in his maiden first-class cricket innings.

He spent the 2013 English summer playing in north-east England again, playing for South Shields in the North East Premier League and Scotland in the 2013 Yorkshire Bank 40 competition, the major English List A competition in 2013, as well as making two further appearances for Durham's second XI.

[19][20] After playing in all three formats of the game for the county, Latham left Kent in mid-July to join the New Zealand team in Zimbabwe.

He was recalled against Bangladesh, where he played a bright innings of 43 while opening the batting, and scored a match-winning 86 off 68 balls during the following tour of Sri Lanka.

By July 2014 he had claimed the spot of opener after a run of poor form for incumbents Hamish Rutherford and Peter Fulton.

In October 2016, while playing against India at Dharamshala Latham became the tenth batsman and the first New Zealander to carry his bat in an ODI.

[26] Due to poor form with the bat,[27] however, he was dropped from the ODI side on 1 March during the series against South Africa.

[30] In December 2017 Latham resumed his role as acting ODI captain against West Indies with Kane Williamson and Tim Southee rested.

[32] In December 2018, against Sri Lanka, he made the highest score while carrying the bat in Test cricket, with 264 not out.

[37] In February 2020, in the first and second ODI against India, Latham captained New Zealand[38] to win by 4 Wickets and 22 runs after Kane Williamson was ruled out of the match due to a shoulder injury.