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England's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month led them on Wednesday to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were compelled to conduct the last training session ahead of their next match against New Zealand inside. It is not always obvious what purpose these two-team contests serve, what valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this occasion, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.

Tom Banton's New Role: From Opener to Lower Down

Tom Banton says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the type of statement regularly trotted out even by athletes who have long since scaled the pinnacle of their game, in his situation it is undeniably true. After building his name as a frontline hitter, mostly as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a completely unfamiliar role, batting at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an starting batsman, a further portion 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 the team plan to keep him in this altered role he needs every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has already worked out a key point: “Batting in the middle order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than opening.”

Mixed Results in the Tour

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 first two games of the winter in New Zealand have featured both outcomes. In the opener, he faced a few deliveries and made nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the second, he faced a dozen balls, hit runs, and ended the innings not out.

Thoughts on Return and Development

The current series has witnessed Banton return to the country in which he made his international debut in late 2019. Since then, he moved away of the side, had a short comeback in recently and then spent more than three years in the sidelines before coming back for Harry Brook’s first T20 as skipper. “During the journey, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. Seems a lot has happened in that time. I've discovered a lot about me. The period after I was left out from England was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year stretch where I was working myself out.”

Support from Team Management

Currently, he has been given a fresh challenge to tackle. Banton is thankful to have been given another chance, and also for Brendon McCullum’s skill to put him at ease while he figures out how best to grasp it. “Baz approached me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Head out and express yourself.’ It's reassuring to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I know it’s only a small thing from the staff, but it gives me the support that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not the end of the world. It’s something so small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the approval from the head coach and I can go out and perform.’”

Venue Change and Team Selection

After playing the first two games of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with unusually long boundaries, England finish the series on the next day at Eden Park, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the field edge at 55m is among the shortest in the sport. With uncertain weather and an new location they have abandoned their recent habit of revealing their team ahead of time while they work out if their ideal XI here will be the identical as the side that started the earlier fixtures.

Upcoming Changes for ODI Series

Next, they travel to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to ODIs, with a somewhat changed squad: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt drop out, while four others come in. Three of those players arrived in Auckland on the same day but the timing of the bowler's Test match buildup means he will arrive two days later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also preparing for the longer format in the away series but are excluded from the white-ball squad. As a result Archer will miss the first match at the venue, the stadium where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in 2019.