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The English side's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in February brought them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly Auckland, where they were compelled to hold the final practice run before their next match against New Zealand inside. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these two-team contests fulfill, what useful lessons could possibly be gained – but on this occasion, for at least one of the players, that is no concern.

The Batter's Changed Position: Starting Batsman to Lower Down

Tom Banton says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the type of statement often repeated even by athletes who have long since scaled the peak of their sport, in his case it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a top-order batter, mostly as an starting player, Banton now occupies a totally new role, batting at five or six. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the squad and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Before his recall in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an starting batsman, another 8% at third position and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at No 7 in a domestic T20 game eight years ago – at fourth place. If the team plan to retain him in this altered role he requires every chance to become accustomed to it, and he has already worked out a key point: “Batting in the middle order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

The player noted that “sometimes where it comes off and it looks great and on other occasions where it doesn’t”, and the first two games of the tour in the host nation have seen one of each. In the opener, he faced a few deliveries and made a low score before holing out to long-on; in the next game, he faced 12 deliveries, hit runs, and finished not out.

Thoughts on Return and Development

The current series has witnessed Banton return to the nation in which he first played for his country in late 2019. Since then, he moved away of the team, had a short comeback in recently and then spent more than three years in the sidelines before returning for Harry Brook’s first T20 as England captain. “During the journey, it was weird,” he said. “It was six years ago when I started internationally. Seems a lot has happened in that time. I've discovered a lot about me. The period after I got dropped from England was a difficult phase for me. I had a two- to three-year period where I was working myself out.”

Support from Team Management

And now, he has been given something new to tackle. Banton is grateful to have been given another chance, and also for the coach's ability to make him comfortable while he works out how best to grasp it. “Baz came up to me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Go out and express yourself.’ It's reassuring to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s only a small thing from the staff, but it gives me the backing that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not the end of the world. It’s something so minor but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the approval from the head coach and I can go out and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

After playing the initial matches of the contest at the South Island ground, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, England finish the series on the next day at Eden Park, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the most compact in the world. With changeable conditions and an new location they have dropped their usual practice of revealing their team two days in advance while they work out if their ideal XI here will be the same as the one that started the earlier fixtures.

Upcoming Changes for ODI Series

On Friday, they travel to the coastal town and turn focus to ODIs, with a slightly amended squad: three players are omitted, while four others join the squad. Most newcomers arrived in Auckland on the same day but the timing of Archer’s Ashes preparations means he will arrive two days later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also building towards the longer format in Australia but are not in the limited-overs team. As a result Archer will be absent for the opening game at the venue, the ground where he was racially abused on his sole prior visit, in 2019.