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The English side's training sessions 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 before their next match against the Kiwis indoors. It is not always obvious what role these two-team contests fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is no concern.

Tom Banton's Changed Position: Starting Batsman to Lower Down

The cricketer says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the type of statement often repeated even by athletes who have already reached the pinnacle of their game, in his situation it is undeniably true. After building his name as a top-order batter, primarily as an opener, Banton suddenly finds himself a completely unfamiliar position, batting at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the squad and told, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in June, 87% of Banton’s over 160 senior T20 innings had been as an starting batsman, a further portion at third position and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game eight years ago – at fourth place. If England intend to keep him in this new position he needs every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has already worked out a key point: “Playing down the order,” he concluded, “is a much tougher than opening.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

The player noted that “sometimes where it comes off and it looks great and on other occasions where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the winter in New Zealand have seen one of each. In the opener, he faced a few deliveries and made a low score before getting out to the deep fielder; in the second, he played 12 deliveries, hit runs, and finished not out.

Thoughts on Comeback and Development

The current series has seen Banton return to the nation in which he first played for his country in late 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the side, had a short comeback in recently and then passed a long period in the wilderness before coming back for the new captain's first T20 as England captain. “During the journey, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. Seems a lot has occurred in that period. I’ve learned a lot about myself. The period after I got dropped from England was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year period where I was working myself out.”

Support from Coaching Staff

Currently, he has been given something new to work out. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for Brendon McCullum’s skill to put him at ease while he works out how best to grasp it. “Baz approached me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment from the staff, but it gives me the support that if it doesn't work, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the head coach and I can step up and do it.’”

Venue Change and Squad Decisions

Following the first two games of the contest at the South Island ground, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, the visitors complete it on the next day at the Auckland arena, a dual-purpose sports facility where the field edge at a short distance is among the shortest in the world. With changeable conditions and an new location they have abandoned their usual practice of revealing their team ahead of time while they work out if their ideal XI for this match will be the identical as the one that began the earlier fixtures.

Upcoming Changes for ODI Series

On Friday, they travel to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to one-day internationals, with a somewhat changed team: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith come in. Three of those players arrived in Auckland on Wednesday but the timing of the bowler's Ashes preparations means he will follow two days later, flying with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also preparing for the Tests in the away series but are not in the white-ball squad. Consequently Archer will be absent for the first match at the venue, the stadium where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.