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England's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in the coming month brought them on Wednesday to a chilly, rainy Auckland, 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 gained – 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 “continuing to develop”, and if it is the type of statement often repeated even by athletes who have already reached the peak of their game, in his case it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a top-order batter, mostly as an opener, Banton suddenly finds himself a completely unfamiliar role, coming in at five or six. “There weren’t really too many discussions,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the squad and told, ‘You’re going to bat in the lower batting lineup 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 remaining handful – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game previously – at fourth place. If England intend to retain him in this altered role he requires every chance to get used to it, and he has already worked out a key point: “Playing down the order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in the Tour

The player noted that “there’s going to be times where it comes off and it appears brilliant and other times where it doesn’t”, and the first two games of the winter in the host nation have featured one of each. In the first, he lasted a few deliveries and made a low score before getting out to long-on; in the second, he faced 12 deliveries, hit runs, and ended the innings unbeaten.

Reflections on Comeback and Growth

This tour has witnessed Banton come back to the country in which he made his international debut in November 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the team, had a short comeback in 2022 and then passed more than three years in the wilderness before returning for the new captain's initial match as skipper. “During the journey, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. Seems a lot has occurred in that time. I've discovered a lot about myself. The period after I was left out from the national team was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year period where I was finding my way.”

Support from Coaching Staff

Currently, he has been given a fresh challenge to tackle. Banton is grateful to have been given another chance, 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 express yourself.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I know it’s just a brief comment someone says, but it provides the backing that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so minor but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the backing from the head coach and I can go out and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

Following the initial matches of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, the visitors finish the series on the next day at the Auckland arena, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the field edge at 55m is among the shortest in the world. With uncertain weather and an unfamiliar venue they have abandoned their usual practice of announcing their lineup two days in advance while they work out if their ideal XI here will be the identical as the side that started the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

Next, they move to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to one-day internationals, with a slightly amended team: three players drop out, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith join the squad. Three of those players arrived in Auckland on the same day but the timing of the bowler's Ashes preparations implies he will follow two days later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, fast bowlers who are also preparing for the longer format in the away series but are not in the white-ball squad. Consequently he will miss the first match at Bay Oval, the ground where he was subjected to abuse on his sole prior visit, in a few years back.