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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 Wednesday to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were compelled to hold the last training session ahead of their next match against New Zealand indoors. The purpose isn't always clear what role these two-team contests fulfill, what useful lessons could possibly be learned – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is no concern.

The Batter's Changed Position: Starting Batsman to Middle Order

Tom Banton says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the type of statement regularly trotted out even by athletes who have long since scaled the pinnacle of their sport, in his case it is certainly accurate. After forging his reputation as a frontline hitter, mostly as an opener, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new position, batting at the middle order. “I didn't have too many discussions,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the squad and told, ‘You’re going to bat in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Before his recall in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an opener, another 8% at No3 and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game previously – at No 4. If the team plan to retain him in this altered role he requires every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has figured out one thing: “Playing down the order,” he concluded, “is a much tougher than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

The player noted that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it looks great and other times where it fails”, and the first two games of the winter in New Zealand have seen one of each. In the opener, he faced a few deliveries and scored nine runs before getting out to long-on; in the second, he played a dozen balls, scored 29, and ended the innings unbeaten.

Thoughts on Comeback and Growth

The current series has witnessed Banton come back to the nation in which he first played for his country in November 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the side, had a short comeback in 2022 and then passed more than three years in the wilderness before returning for Harry Brook’s first T20 as England captain. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. Seems a lot has happened in that time. 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 stretch where I was working myself out.”

Support from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been given a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is thankful to have been given another chance, and also for Brendon McCullum’s ability to put him at ease while he figures out how best to seize the opportunity. “The coach approached me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Go out and express yourself.’ It's reassuring to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I know it’s just a brief comment someone says, but it gives me the support that if it doesn't work, it’s not the end of the world. It’s something so small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the manager and I can step up and perform.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

After playing the first two games of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with unusually long boundaries, England complete it on the next day at the Auckland arena, a multi-use 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 same as the one that began the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for ODI Series

Next, they move to the coastal town and shift attention to ODIs, with a somewhat changed team: three players drop out, while four others come in. Three of those players arrived in Auckland on the same day but the timing of Archer’s Ashes preparations means he will follow two days later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also building towards the longer format in Australia but are not in the limited-overs team. As a result he will miss the opening game at Bay Oval, the stadium where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in a few years back.