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The English side's preparations for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month brought them on midweek to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were compelled to conduct the last practice run before their third game against the Kiwis indoors. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these two-team contests fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be gained – but on this occasion, for at least one of the players, that is no concern.

Tom Banton's Changed Position: 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 athletes who have long since scaled the peak of their sport, in his case it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a frontline hitter, primarily as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a completely unfamiliar position, batting at five or six. “There weren’t really too many discussions,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the squad and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in June, 87% of Banton’s 162 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, another 8% at third position and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game eight years ago – at No 4. If the team intend to keep him in this altered role he requires 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.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

Banton said that “sometimes where it works well and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it fails”, and the first two games of the tour in New Zealand have seen one of each. In the first, he lasted a few deliveries and made nine runs before holing out to long-on; in the second, he faced a dozen balls, scored 29, and finished unbeaten.

Thoughts on Return and Development

The current series has seen Banton return to the country in which he first played for his country in November 2019. Since then, he moved away of the side, made a brief return in recently and then spent a long period in the sidelines before coming back for Harry Brook’s first T20 as England captain. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. Seems a lot has happened in that time. I’ve learned a lot about myself. 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 finding my way.”

Backing from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been given something new to work out. Banton is grateful 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. “Baz came up to me before [the recent game] 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 provides the support that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so minor but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can go out and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

After playing the first two games of the contest at the South Island ground, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, the visitors finish the series on Thursday at the Auckland arena, a dual-purpose rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the most compact in the world. With uncertain weather and an new location they have abandoned their recent habit of revealing their lineup ahead of time while they determine if their preferred team here will be the identical as the one that began the earlier fixtures.

Upcoming Changes for One-Day Matches

Next, they travel to the coastal town and shift attention to ODIs, with a slightly amended team: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt drop out, while four others come in. Most newcomers arrived in Auckland on the same day but the scheduling of Archer’s Test match buildup means he will arrive two days later, flying with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, fast bowlers who are also preparing for the Tests in the away series but are not in the white-ball squad. As a result he will miss the first match at Bay Oval, the stadium where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.