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The English side's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in India in February brought them on midweek to a chilly, rainy New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to conduct the last training session ahead of their next match against the Kiwis indoors. It is not always obvious what role these two-team contests fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is not an issue.

The Batter's Changed Position: From Opener to Middle Order

Tom Banton says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the kind of line regularly trotted out even by players who have long since scaled the peak of their sport, in his case it is certainly accurate. After forging his reputation as a frontline hitter, mostly as an opener, Banton now occupies a totally new position, batting 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 lower batting lineup now.’”

Prior to returning in June, the vast majority of Banton’s 162 professional T20 appearances had been as an starting batsman, another 8% at third position and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game previously – at No 4. If England plan to retain him in this altered role he requires every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Playing down the order,” he concluded, “is a much tougher than opening.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it fails”, and the initial matches of the tour in the host nation have seen both outcomes. In the opener, he faced a few deliveries and made a low score before holing out to long-on; in the second, he faced a dozen balls, scored 29, and finished unbeaten.

Reflections on Comeback and Development

This tour has seen Banton return to the nation in which he first played for his country in late 2019. Since then, he moved away of the team, made a brief return in 2022 and then passed more than three years in the wilderness before returning for Harry Brook’s initial match as skipper. “During the journey, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. It feels like a lot has happened in that period. I’ve learned a lot about me. The period after I was left out from the national team was a difficult phase for me. I had a couple of years stretch where I was working myself out.”

Support from Team Management

Currently, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to tackle. Banton is grateful to have been given another chance, and also for Brendon McCullum’s ability to make him comfortable while he figures out how best to seize the opportunity. “The coach came up to me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Head out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment from the staff, but it gives me the backing that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not the end of the world. It is so small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the manager and I can step up and do it.’”

Venue Change and Squad Decisions

Following the first two games of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with expansive playing area, the visitors complete it on the next day at the Auckland arena, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at 55m is among the shortest in the sport. With changeable conditions and an new location they have dropped their recent habit of announcing their lineup ahead of time while they work out if their preferred team here will be the identical as the one that began both previous games.

Upcoming Changes for One-Day Matches

Next, they travel to the coastal town and turn focus to ODIs, with a somewhat changed team: three players are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith come in. Most newcomers arrived in the city on the same day but the scheduling of Archer’s Test match buildup implies he will follow two days later, flying with two fellow bowlers, 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 Bay Oval, the ground where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in a few years back.