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The English side's preparations for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in India in the coming month brought them on midweek to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were compelled to hold the final training session ahead of their third game against New Zealand indoors. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these two-team contests serve, what valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is no concern.

Tom Banton's New Role: Starting Batsman to Lower Down

The cricketer says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the kind of line regularly trotted out even by athletes who have already reached the pinnacle of their sport, in his situation it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, mostly as an opener, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new role, coming in at the middle order. “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 the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s 162 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, another 8% at third position and the rest – but for a brief stint at No 7 in a T20 Blast game eight years ago – at fourth place. If England plan to retain him in this altered role he needs every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Playing down the order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in the Tour

Banton said that “sometimes where it comes off and it looks great and on other occasions where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the tour in the host nation have seen one of each. In the first, he faced a few deliveries and scored nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he played a dozen balls, hit runs, and ended the innings not out.

Reflections on Return and Growth

This tour has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he made his international debut in November 2019. After that, he moved away of the side, made a brief return in 2022 and then spent more than three years in the wilderness before returning for the new captain's first T20 as England captain. “During the journey, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. It feels like a lot has occurred in that period. I’ve learned a lot about myself. The few years after I was left out from the national team was a tough time for me. I had a couple of years period where I was working myself out.”

Support from Team Management

And now, he has been given a fresh challenge to tackle. Banton is grateful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach's ability to make him comfortable 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 liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment someone says, but it provides the support that if it doesn't work, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can go out and perform.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

Following the first two games of the contest at the South Island ground, 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 a short distance is among the most compact in the sport. With changeable conditions and an new location they have abandoned their recent habit of revealing their lineup two days in advance while they work out if their preferred team here will be the same as the one that began the earlier fixtures.

Upcoming Changes for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they move to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to ODIs, with a slightly amended team: three players drop out, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith join the squad. Three of those players arrived in Auckland on the same day but the scheduling of the bowler's Test match buildup means he will arrive later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also building towards the Tests in Australia but are excluded from the white-ball squad. As a result he will miss the opening game at Bay Oval, the ground where he was subjected to abuse on his sole prior visit, in 2019.