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The English side's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in India in the coming month brought them on midweek to a chilly, rainy New Zealand's largest city, where they were compelled to conduct the last training session before their next match against New Zealand indoors. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these bilateral series fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is not an issue.

Tom Banton's New Role: From Opener to Middle Order

Tom Banton says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the type of statement often repeated even by athletes who have already reached the peak of their sport, in his situation it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a frontline hitter, mostly as an starting player, Banton now occupies a totally new position, coming in at five or six. “I didn't have 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.’”

Before his recall in June, 87% 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 domestic T20 game eight years ago – at No 4. If England intend to retain him in this new position he needs every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has already worked out a key point: “Playing down the order,” he surmised, “is a lot harder than opening.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

Banton said that “sometimes where it works well and it looks great and other times where it doesn’t”, and the first two games of the tour in New Zealand have featured both outcomes. In the first, he lasted a few deliveries and scored a low score before holing out to long-on; in the next game, he faced a dozen balls, scored 29, and ended the innings not out.

Thoughts on Comeback and Growth

This tour has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he first played for his country in late 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the team, had a short comeback in recently and then passed more than three years in the sidelines before coming back for Harry Brook’s initial match as England captain. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “It was six years ago when I started internationally. Seems a lot has happened in that time. I’ve learned a lot about me. The period after I got dropped from England was a tough time for me. I had a couple of years period where I was finding my way.”

Support from Coaching Staff

Currently, he has been given a fresh challenge to work out. 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 grasp it. “Baz came up to me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Head out and play your natural game.’ It's reassuring to have that freedom,” 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, ‘Alright, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can go out and do it.’”

Venue Change and Squad Decisions

After playing the initial matches of the series at the South Island ground, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, England complete it on the next day at Eden Park, a dual-purpose sports facility where the field edge at a short distance is among the most compact in the world. With changeable conditions and an new location they have dropped their usual practice of announcing their lineup ahead of time while they determine if their preferred team for this match will be the same as the one that began the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for ODI Series

Next, they travel to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to ODIs, with a somewhat changed team: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt drop out, while four others come in. Three of those players landed in the city on Wednesday but the scheduling of the bowler's Test match buildup means he will follow later, flying with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also building towards the longer format in the away series but are excluded from the white-ball squad. Consequently Archer will be absent for the opening game at the venue, the ground where he was racially abused on his sole prior visit, in 2019.