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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 midweek to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to conduct the last practice run ahead of their next match against New Zealand inside. It is not always obvious what purpose these bilateral series serve, what useful lessons could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is not an issue.

Tom Banton's New Role: Starting Batsman to Middle Order

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 sport, in his situation it is undeniably true. After building his name as a top-order batter, mostly as an opener, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar position, coming in at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the squad and told, ‘Your role will be in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Prior to returning in June, 87% of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an starting batsman, a further portion at No3 and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game eight years ago – at fourth place. If England intend to retain him in this altered role he requires every chance 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.”

Mixed Results in the Tour

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it appears brilliant and other times where it fails”, and the first two games of the tour in New Zealand have featured one of each. In the opener, he faced a few deliveries and made nine runs before getting out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he faced 12 deliveries, scored 29, and finished not out.

Thoughts on Return and Growth

The current series has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he first played for his country in November 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the team, had a short comeback in recently and then spent more than three years in the wilderness before coming back for Harry Brook’s first T20 as skipper. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. Seems a lot has occurred in that period. I've discovered a lot about me. The period after I was left out from England was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year period where I was finding my way.”

Support from Team Management

Currently, he has been assigned something new to work out. Banton is grateful 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 grasp it. “Baz came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and express yourself.’ It's reassuring to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s only a small thing from the staff, but it gives me the support that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not the end of the world. It is so minor but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can step up and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

After playing the first two games of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, England finish the series on the next day at Eden Park, a dual-purpose sports facility where the field edge at 55m is among the shortest in the sport. With changeable conditions and an new location they have dropped their usual practice of revealing their team ahead of time while they determine if their preferred team for this match will be the identical as the one that began both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

Next, they move to the coastal town and shift attention to ODIs, with a somewhat changed squad: three players are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith come in. Three of those players landed in Auckland on Wednesday but the scheduling of Archer’s Test match buildup means he will arrive two days later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, fast bowlers who are also building towards the longer format in the away series but are not in the limited-overs team. As a result Archer will be absent for the opening game at Bay Oval, the ground where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.