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The English side's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in February brought them on Wednesday to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were forced to conduct the final training session ahead of their third game against New Zealand inside. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these bilateral series serve, what valuable insights could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is not an issue.

The Batter's New Role: Starting Batsman 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 pinnacle of their game, in his case it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a top-order batter, mostly as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a completely unfamiliar position, coming in at five or six. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Before his recall in the summer, 87% of Banton’s 162 professional T20 appearances had been as an starting batsman, another 8% at No3 and the rest – but for a brief stint at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game eight years ago – at No 4. If England plan to keep him in this new position he needs every chance to get used to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Mixed Results in the Tour

Banton said that “sometimes where it works well and it looks great and on other occasions where it fails”, and the initial matches of the winter in the host nation have featured both outcomes. In the first, he faced nine balls and scored nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he played 12 deliveries, scored 29, and ended the innings not out.

Reflections on Return and Development

The current series has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he made his international debut in November 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the side, made a brief return in recently and then spent more than three years in the sidelines before returning for the new captain's initial match as skipper. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “It was six years ago when I started internationally. It feels like a lot has happened in that period. I’ve learned a lot about myself. The few years after I was left out from the national team was a tough time for me. I had a couple of years stretch where I was working myself out.”

Backing from Team Management

And now, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is grateful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach's ability to put him at ease while he figures out how best to seize the opportunity. “Baz approached me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and express yourself.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment from the staff, but it provides the backing that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not a disaster. It is so small but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can step up and perform.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

After playing the initial matches of the series at the South Island ground, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, the visitors finish the series on the next day at Eden Park, a dual-purpose sports facility where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the shortest in the sport. With changeable conditions and an unfamiliar venue they have dropped their usual practice of revealing their lineup ahead of time while they determine if their preferred team here will be the identical as the side that began both previous games.

Upcoming Changes for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they travel to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, with a somewhat changed squad: three players drop out, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith join the squad. Three of those players landed in the city on the same day but the timing of the bowler's Test match buildup implies he will arrive later, flying with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, fast bowlers who are also preparing for the Tests in the away series but are excluded from the white-ball squad. Consequently he will miss the first match at Bay Oval, the stadium where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in a few years back.