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England's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in the coming month brought them on midweek to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were compelled to conduct the last training session before their next match against the Kiwis indoors. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these bilateral series serve, what useful lessons could possibly be gained – but on this occasion, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.

Tom Banton's Changed Position: From Opener to Middle Order

The cricketer says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the kind of line regularly trotted out even by athletes who have long since scaled the peak of their sport, 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, coming in at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many discussions,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and told, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in June, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, another 8% at No3 and the rest – but for a brief stint at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game previously – at No 4. If the team intend to retain him in this new position he needs every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has already worked out a key point: “Batting in the middle order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Mixed Results in New Zealand

The player noted that “sometimes where it works well and it looks great and other times where it doesn’t”, and the first two games of the winter in New Zealand have seen one of each. In the first, he lasted a few deliveries and made nine runs before getting out to long-on; in the second, he faced 12 deliveries, scored 29, and finished unbeaten.

Reflections on Return and Growth

The current series has witnessed Banton come back to the nation in which he first played for his country in late 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the team, made a brief return in 2022 and then spent more than three years in the sidelines before returning for Harry Brook’s first T20 as skipper. “During the journey, it was strange,” he said. “It was six years ago when I started internationally. 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 tough time for me. I had a couple of years period where I was working myself out.”

Backing from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been given a fresh challenge to tackle. Banton is grateful to have been given another chance, and also for the coach's ability to make him comfortable while he figures out how best to seize the opportunity. “Baz approached 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 from the staff, but it gives me the support that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so minor but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the approval from the head coach and I can step up and perform.’”

Venue Change and Squad Decisions

Following the first two games of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with expansive playing area, England finish the series on the next day at the Auckland arena, a dual-purpose sports facility where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the most compact in the world. With changeable conditions and an new location they have dropped their usual practice of announcing their team ahead of time while they work out if their preferred team here will be the identical as the one that started both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

Next, they move to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to one-day internationals, with a somewhat changed squad: three players drop out, while four others join the squad. Most newcomers arrived in the city on Wednesday but the scheduling of Archer’s Ashes preparations implies he will follow later, flying with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also preparing for the Tests in the away series but are not in the limited-overs team. Consequently Archer will be absent for the opening game at Bay Oval, the stadium where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in a few years back.