At 31, Ross Taylor has overcome the disappointment of losing the captaincy and has continued to develop his game, in particular having greater confidence in being able to drive down the ground. Taylor had preferred to work the angles earlier in his career but realised to flourish against the best pace attacks in the world he needed to learn to score more with a straight bat. He produced some delightful strokes on his way to a stunning 290, the highest score in Australia by a touring batsman. While his knock may not have have had the flashiness of Brian Lara's 277 at the SCG more than 20 years ago, this was a performance to remember, and finally showed he is better than the average of 26.2 he had mustered in his 10 previous innings on local soil.

Historic milestones are surely worthy of a handshake:

The Australians were blasted by former fast bowler Dirk Nannes for "horrendous sportsmanship" for not dashing over to Taylor and shaking his hand after he was the last man out. "Probably the biggest disappointment of that session is that, after the innings, he's made 290, not one person from the Australian camp went and shook his hand," Nannes said on ABC Radio. "You don't have a guy bat for a day and a half out there and just not even acknowledge it. That's horrendous sportsmanship." Instead, most gathered on the pitch to congratulate spinner Nathan Lyon and substitute fieldsman Jono Wells, who had combined for the dismissal. But they did clap Taylor. With one over to bowl before lunch, openers David Warner and Joe Burns dashed from the field to pad up and Warner effusively clapped Taylor on his way to the dressing room and allowing him to be the first to leave the ground to the warm applause of the crowd. However, after a milestone such as this, surely a few of the Aussies could have at least shaken Taylor's hand.

We need touring batsmen to take a stand:

Speaking of Taylor, his form in this Test, and that of Kane Williamson, is what Australian summers need, certainly for promotional purposes. Remember the days – and hype – when a Viv Richards or Sachin Tendulkar or Brian Lara was coming to town? It didn't matter whether their teams were particularly strong – not that Richards ever had to worry about that – but they were household names worth the (ever increasing) price of admission. Remember Michael Vaughan's summer of 2002-03? England, for the most part, was terrible but the debonair Vaughan's willingness to take on Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Shane Warne was compelling viewing.

Expect more days like this in this new Australian era:

This has been Test cricket at its heavy-duty best; the bowlers were made to work terribly hard for their wickets on a pitch not offering a great deal of assistance. Skipper Steve Smith did his best with regular bowling changes in the Caps' first innings but he has inherited a Mitchell Johnson on the decline and pondering retirement, so his attack lacks that extra sting when Mitchell Starc is resting. Lyon continues to bowl too straight a line, and his wagon wheel reinforced this after many of his runs were conceded with flicks through the leg side. Smith has been encouraging him to pitch outside off stump, tempting the right-handed batsmen to hit against the spin and punch through the covers. All of this is likely to mean some long days in the field when the Australians face quality batting line-ups.

If you start thinking about retirement, it's time to go:

Test cricket is taxing enough, physically and mentally, even for the freshest of men, particularly when the constant travel and absences from home are tacked on. At 34, Johnson has had a decade of international cricket, and will already be remembered as one of our finest fast bowlers, having taken the fourth-most Test wickets of any Australian. He said last month he had considered retirement after the losing Ashes series, and revealed last week he pondered this "most days". His performance and body language in New Zealand's first innings (1-157 off 28 overs) was of a man with thoughts other than wickets and line and length on his mind. As former Australian captain Mark Taylor said during Channel Nine's commentary: "Once you start thinking about giving the game away, it's always a worrying sign ... you start to think: 'Should I still be playing, I'm now 34, the body's getting a bit older, I'm getting a bit sorer, do I still really want to do it?'." We await Johnson's response.