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The English side's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in the coming month brought them on midweek to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were forced to hold the final training session before their third game against New Zealand indoors. It is not always obvious what purpose these bilateral series fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is no concern.

Tom Banton's Changed Position: From Opener to Middle Order

The cricketer 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 frontline hitter, primarily as an opener, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar position, batting at the middle order. “I didn't have too many discussions,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and told, ‘You’re going to bat in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in June, 87% of Banton’s over 160 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, a further portion at No3 and the rest – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game eight years ago – at No 4. If England intend to retain him in this altered role he requires every chance to get used to it, and he has figured out a key point: “Playing down the order,” he surmised, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Mixed Results in New Zealand

The player noted that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the tour in New Zealand have seen one of each. In the first, he lasted a few deliveries and scored nine runs before holing out to long-on; in the next game, he faced a dozen balls, scored 29, and finished not out.

Thoughts on Return and Development

The current series has witnessed Banton come back to the country in which he first played for his country in November 2019. After that, he moved away of the team, made a brief return in 2022 and then passed more than three years in the sidelines before returning 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 occurred in that period. I've discovered a lot about me. The period after I got dropped from England was a difficult phase for me. I had a two- to three-year stretch where I was working myself out.”

Support from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is grateful to have been given another chance, and also for Brendon McCullum’s skill to make him comfortable while he works out how best to grasp it. “The coach came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize 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 approval from the manager and I can step up and do it.’”

Venue Change and Team Selection

Following the first two games of the series at the South Island ground, a venue with unusually long boundaries, England complete it on the next day at Eden Park, a dual-purpose sports facility where the field edge at 55m is among the shortest in the world. With changeable conditions and an unfamiliar venue they have dropped their recent habit of announcing their team ahead of time while they work out if their ideal XI for this match will be the identical as the side that began both previous games.

Upcoming Changes for ODI Series

Next, they move to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to one-day internationals, with a somewhat changed team: 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 Archer’s Test match buildup implies he will follow two days later, flying with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also preparing for the longer format in the away series but are not in the limited-overs team. Consequently he will miss the first match at the venue, the ground where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.