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The English side's preparations for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in India in February led them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly Auckland, where they were forced to conduct the last training session before their third game against New Zealand inside. It is not always obvious what purpose these bilateral series serve, what valuable insights could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is no concern.

The Batter's New Role: From Opener to Lower Down

Tom Banton says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the type of statement often repeated even by players who have long since scaled the pinnacle of their sport, in his case it is certainly accurate. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, primarily as an opener, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new position, batting at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an opener, a further portion at third position and the rest – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game eight years ago – at fourth place. If England plan to keep him in this new position he needs every chance to get used to it, and he has already worked out a key point: “Batting in the middle order,” he concluded, “is a much tougher than starting the innings.”

Mixed Results in the Tour

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it comes off and it looks great and other times where it fails”, and the initial matches of the winter in the host nation have featured one of each. In the opener, he faced nine balls and made nine runs before getting out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he faced 12 deliveries, hit runs, and ended the innings not out.

Reflections on Comeback and Development

This tour has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he first played for his country in November 2019. Since then, he moved away of the team, made a brief return in 2022 and then spent more than three years in the sidelines before returning for Harry Brook’s first T20 as skipper. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. Seems a lot has occurred in that period. I’ve learned a lot about me. The period after I was left out from the national team was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year period where I was working myself out.”

Backing from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been assigned something new to work out. Banton is thankful to have been given another chance, and also for Brendon McCullum’s skill to put him at ease while he works out how best to grasp it. “Baz came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Head out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment someone says, but it provides the support that if it doesn't work, it’s not a disaster. It is so minor but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can go out and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

After playing the first two games of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with expansive playing area, the visitors finish the series on Thursday at Eden Park, a dual-purpose rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the shortest in the sport. With changeable conditions and an unfamiliar venue they have dropped their recent habit of announcing their lineup two days in advance while they work out if their ideal XI here will be the identical as the side that started the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they travel to the coastal town and turn focus to one-day internationals, with a somewhat changed squad: three players are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith join the squad. Three of those players landed in Auckland on the same day but the timing of Archer’s Test match buildup means he will follow later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, fast bowlers who are also building towards the longer format in the away series but are excluded from the white-ball squad. As a result he will miss the first match at Bay Oval, the ground where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in a few years back.