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The English side's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month brought them on midweek to a chilly, rainy New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to conduct the final training session before their third game against the Kiwis inside. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these two-team contests fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.

Tom Banton's Changed Position: Starting Batsman to Middle Order

Tom Banton says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the type of statement regularly trotted out even by athletes who have already reached the pinnacle of their sport, in his case it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, primarily as an starting player, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar position, coming in at five or six. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘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 No 7 in a domestic T20 game previously – at fourth place. If the team intend to retain him in this new position he needs every chance to get used to it, and he has figured out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he surmised, “is a lot harder than opening.”

Mixed Results in New Zealand

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it looks great and on other occasions where it fails”, and the initial matches of the winter in the host nation have seen both outcomes. In the first, he lasted nine balls and scored nine runs before getting out to long-on; in the next game, he faced a dozen balls, scored 29, and finished unbeaten.

Thoughts on Return and Development

This tour has seen Banton return to the country in which he first played for his country in November 2019. After that, he moved away of the side, made a brief return in 2022 and then passed a long period in the wilderness before returning for the new captain's first T20 as skipper. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. Seems a lot has occurred in that time. I’ve learned a lot about myself. The period after I got dropped from England was a difficult phase for me. I had a two- to three-year period where I was finding my way.”

Backing from Team Management

Currently, he has been assigned 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 works out how best to seize the opportunity. “Baz approached me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Head out and play your natural game.’ It's reassuring to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I know it’s only a small thing someone says, but it gives me the support 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 step up and perform.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

Following the first two games of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with expansive playing area, England 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 most compact in the sport. With changeable conditions and an unfamiliar venue they have dropped their usual practice of revealing their team ahead of time while they determine if their preferred team here will be the identical as the side that began the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they travel to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, with a somewhat changed team: three players are omitted, while four others join the squad. Most newcomers arrived in the city on Wednesday but the timing of Archer’s Test match buildup implies he will arrive 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. As a result he will be absent for the opening game at the venue, the stadium where he was subjected to abuse on his sole prior visit, in 2019.