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The English side's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in India in the coming month led them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to hold the last training session ahead of their third game against the Kiwis inside. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these two-team contests serve, what valuable insights could possibly be gained – but on this occasion, for at least a squad member, that is not an issue.

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

The cricketer says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the type of statement often repeated even by players who have already reached the pinnacle of their sport, in his case it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a frontline hitter, mostly as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a completely unfamiliar role, coming in at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many discussions,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Prior to returning in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 senior T20 innings had been as an starting batsman, another 8% at third position and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at No 7 in a T20 Blast game previously – at No 4. If the team intend to keep him in this new position he needs every chance to become accustomed to it, and he has figured out a key point: “Playing down the order,” he surmised, “is a lot harder than opening.”

Mixed Results in the Tour

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it comes off 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 opener, he faced nine balls and scored nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the second, he played a dozen balls, scored 29, and ended the innings not out.

Reflections on Comeback and Development

This tour has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he made his international debut in November 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the side, made a brief return in 2022 and then spent a long period in the sidelines before returning for Harry Brook’s first T20 as skipper. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “It was six years ago when I started internationally. It feels like a lot has happened in that time. I've discovered a lot about myself. The few years after I got dropped from England was a difficult phase for me. I had a couple of years period where I was working myself out.”

Backing from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been assigned something new to tackle. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach's skill to put him at ease while he figures out how best to seize the opportunity. “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 realize it’s just a brief comment from the staff, but it provides the support that if it doesn't work, it’s not a disaster. It is so small but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the backing 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 Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with unusually long boundaries, the visitors finish the series on Thursday at Eden Park, a dual-purpose rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the shortest in the world. With uncertain weather and an new location they have abandoned their recent habit of announcing their lineup ahead of time while they determine if their ideal XI here will be the identical as the side that began the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for ODI Series

Next, they travel to the coastal town and shift attention to one-day internationals, with a somewhat changed team: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt drop out, while four others come in. Most newcomers landed in Auckland on Wednesday but the scheduling of Archer’s Ashes preparations implies he will follow two days later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also building towards the longer format in Australia but are not in the white-ball squad. Consequently he will miss the first match at the venue, the ground where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in 2019.