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The English side's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month led them on Wednesday to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were forced to conduct the last training session before their next match against the Kiwis inside. It is not always obvious what purpose these bilateral series serve, what useful lessons could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is not an issue.

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 regularly trotted out even by athletes who have long since scaled the peak of their game, in his case it is certainly accurate. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, mostly as an opener, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new position, coming in at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the squad and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Before his recall in the summer, 87% of Banton’s over 160 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, a further portion at No3 and the rest – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game eight years ago – at fourth place. If England plan to keep him in this new position he needs every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has figured out a key point: “Batting in the middle order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in the Tour

The player noted that “there’s going to be times where it comes off and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it doesn’t”, and the first two games of the tour in New Zealand have seen both outcomes. In the first, he lasted a few deliveries and made a low score before holing out to the deep fielder; in the second, he faced 12 deliveries, hit runs, and finished unbeaten.

Thoughts on Comeback and Development

The current series has witnessed Banton return to the nation in which he first played for his country in November 2019. After that, he moved away of the team, had a short comeback in 2022 and then spent a long period in the wilderness before returning for the new captain's first T20 as England captain. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “It was six years ago when I made my debut. Seems a lot has happened in that period. I’ve learned a lot about myself. The few years after I got dropped from England was a difficult phase for me. I had a two- to three-year period where I was finding my way.”

Support from Team Management

Currently, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to tackle. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for Brendon McCullum’s ability to put him at ease while he figures out how best to grasp it. “The coach came up to me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Head out and express yourself.’ It's reassuring to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I know it’s only a small thing from the staff, but it provides the backing that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not the end of the world. It’s something so small 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

Following the first two games of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with unusually long boundaries, England complete it on Thursday at Eden Park, a dual-purpose rugby and cricket ground where the field edge at 55m is among the most compact in the world. With changeable conditions and an unfamiliar venue they have abandoned their recent habit of revealing their team ahead of time while they determine if their preferred team for this match will be the identical as the side that began both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

Next, they travel to the coastal town and shift attention to ODIs, with a slightly amended squad: three players drop out, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith come in. 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, flying with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also building towards the Tests in Australia but are not in the white-ball squad. Consequently Archer will miss the first match at the venue, the ground where he was racially abused on his sole prior visit, in 2019.