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England's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in the coming month brought them on midweek to a chilly, rainy New Zealand's largest city, where they were compelled to conduct the final training session before their third game against the Kiwis inside. The purpose isn't always clear what role these bilateral series serve, what valuable insights could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is not an issue.

Tom Banton's Changed Position: Starting Batsman to Middle Order

The cricketer says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the kind of line regularly trotted out even by players who have already reached the pinnacle of their game, in his situation it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a frontline hitter, primarily as an opener, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar role, batting at five or six. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and told, ‘You’re going to bat in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in June, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an opener, another 8% at third position and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game eight years ago – at fourth place. If England plan to retain him in this altered role he requires every chance to become accustomed to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Playing down the order,” he surmised, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

The player noted that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it appears brilliant and other times where it fails”, and the initial matches of the tour in New Zealand have seen one of each. In the opener, he faced nine balls and made a low score before getting out to long-on; in the next game, he played 12 deliveries, scored 29, and ended the innings not out.

Thoughts on Return and Development

This tour has witnessed Banton come back to the nation in which he made his international debut in late 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the side, made a brief return in 2022 and then passed a long period in the wilderness before coming back for the new captain's first T20 as skipper. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “It was six years ago when I started internationally. Seems a lot has occurred in that period. I've discovered a lot about me. The period after I was left out from England was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year period where I was working myself out.”

Support from Coaching Staff

Currently, he has been given a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is grateful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach's skill to make him comfortable while he figures out how best to seize the opportunity. “The coach came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Head out and express yourself.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment someone says, 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 backing from the head coach and I can step up and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

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

Squad Adjustments for ODI Series

Next, they travel to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to one-day internationals, with a slightly amended team: three players are omitted, while four others join the squad. Most newcomers landed in the city on Wednesday but the scheduling of Archer’s Ashes preparations means he will arrive later, flying with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also preparing for the Tests in Australia but are not in the white-ball squad. Consequently Archer will be absent for the first match at Bay Oval, the stadium where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.