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The English side's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in February brought them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to conduct the last training session ahead of their next match against the Kiwis indoors. The purpose isn't always clear what role these two-team contests fulfill, what useful lessons could possibly be gained – but on this occasion, for at least a squad member, 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 regularly trotted out even by athletes who have already reached the peak of their game, in his case it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a frontline hitter, primarily as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new role, batting at five or six. “I didn't have too many discussions,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and told, ‘You’re going to bat in the middle order now.’”

Before his recall in the summer, 87% of Banton’s 162 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, a further portion at third position and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at No 7 in a domestic T20 game eight years ago – at fourth place. If England intend to retain him in this altered role he needs every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has already worked out a key point: “Playing down the order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Mixed Results in the Tour

The player noted that “sometimes where it works well and it appears brilliant and other times where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the winter in the host nation have featured one of each. In the first, he faced nine balls and scored nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he faced 12 deliveries, scored 29, and finished unbeaten.

Thoughts on Comeback and Development

The current series has seen Banton return to the country in which he made his international debut in November 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the team, made a brief return in 2022 and then passed more than three years in the wilderness before returning for the new captain's initial match as England captain. “During the journey, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. It feels like a lot has happened in that time. I've discovered a lot about me. The few years after I got dropped from the national team was a difficult phase for me. I had a couple of years 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 given another chance, and also for Brendon McCullum’s skill to make him comfortable while he figures out how best to grasp it. “The coach approached me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Head out and play your natural game.’ It's reassuring to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I know it’s only a small thing someone says, but it provides the backing that if it doesn't work, 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 manager and I can go out and perform.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

Following the initial matches of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, the visitors finish the series on the next day at the Auckland arena, a dual-purpose sports facility where the field edge at a short distance is among the most compact in the sport. With uncertain weather and an new location they have abandoned their recent habit of announcing their lineup two days in advance while they work out if their ideal XI here will be the same as the side that began both previous games.

Upcoming Changes for ODI Series

On Friday, they travel to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, with a somewhat changed squad: three players drop out, while four others come in. Three of those players landed in Auckland on Wednesday but the scheduling of Archer’s Ashes preparations means he will follow two days later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also preparing for 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 racially abused on his sole prior visit, in 2019.