New Zealand meets Sri Lanka in the World Cup semifinal tomorrow after an upset quarterfinal win over South Africa.
"Most of the times when New Zealand play we are the underdogs," Taylor said today. "It's something that we almost enjoy.
"A lot of teams expect to beat us and we enjoy the underdogs tag - and we expect to beat them as well."
Sri Lanka beat New Zealand by 112 runs in a Group A match at Mumbai, when Muttiah Muralitharan took 4-25.
But Muralitharan, the leading wicket-taker in international cricket, is under an injury cloud and Sri Lanka is under enormous pressure to send the veteran spinner out as a two-time World Cup champion.
South Africa was cruising along well at 113-2 in pursuit of New Zealand's modest total of 221-8 before some brilliant fielding sparked a collapse. The South Africans were dismissed for 172 in 43.2 overs.
"We've got lot of momentum in our camp," said Taylor, whose unbeaten century in the 110-run win over Pakistan in the group stage helped the Kiwis into the knockout round. "We're very happy the way we have fielded and hopefully we can continue that and put Sri Lanka under pressure."
New Zealand got the feel of what Sri Lanka could offer at the R. Premadasa Stadium in the semifinal when they faced Muralitharan in the group stage.
"Obviously it's a sudden-death game," Taylor said. "We are taking lot of confidence from our last game against South Africa.
"We've got an advantage that we've played against Sri Lanka in the pool match and we did a few things wrong, and hopefully we will rectify that in the match come Tuesday."
Muralitharan's return of 2-54 could have been much better in Sri Lanka's crushing 10-wicket win over England in the quarterfinals, had two regulation catches not been dropped off his bowling.
Jonathan Trott - the leading scorer in the World Cup with 422 runs - played a test-match like knock of 86 off 115 balls and was the only English batsman to show confidence against Muralitharan.
Taylor saw some of Saturday's quarterfinal and said he got a few ideas from the way Trott handled Murali.
"I thought the way Trott batted was something that we can take a leaf out of," Taylor said. Particularly, "the way they played Murali because obviously Murali was a big factor in the way Sri Lanka beat us in the last match."
Taylor is New Zealand's leading scorer in the tournament with 288 runs from seven matches. His 131 against Pakistan on his 27th birthday at Kandy, Sri Lanka, was pivotal in New Zealand's campaign.
"The main thing is to score runs and help the team win, whether its scoring 40 or 140," Taylor said. "Getting a score and putting pressure (on the opposition) whether you are batting first or second."
Tomorrow's match will also be a repeat of 2007 World Cup semifinal between the two countries when Sri Lanka defeated the Kiwis by 81 runs in Jamaica. Overall it will be New Zealand's sixth World Cup semifinal appearance - all five previous have been losses.
Taylor said now could be the time to start correcting the ledger.
"We are proud of our history of making it to the semifinals," he said. "But this team want to make history and go one step further and make the final, we believe we can do that and we want to show that on Tuesday."
New Zealand's World Cup performance has been a remarkable turnaround after the Black Caps were swept by both Bangladesh and India on the subcontinent in limited-overs series last year.
Taylor thought that the poor build-up to the tournament - with three wins in 17 completed ODIs including an 11-match losing streak - might have meant other teams underestimated them as World Cup contenders.
"I don't think a lot of other people gave us a chance, which probably made other teams take us a little bit lighter then they would normally do," he said. "That played into our hands."
