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The English side's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in the coming month led them on midweek to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to conduct the final training session ahead of their third game against the Kiwis inside. It is not always obvious what purpose these bilateral series fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be gained – but on this occasion, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.

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

The cricketer says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the kind of line often repeated even by athletes who have long since scaled the pinnacle of their game, in his case it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, mostly as an opener, Banton now occupies a totally new role, batting at five or six. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and told, ‘Your role will be in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Prior to returning in the summer, 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 a brief stint at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game eight years ago – at No 4. If the team plan to retain him in this new position he needs every chance to get used to it, and he has figured out a key point: “Batting in the middle order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

The player noted that “sometimes where it works well and it appears brilliant and other times where it fails”, and the first two games of the winter in New Zealand have featured one of each. In the first, he faced a few deliveries and scored a low score before holing out to long-on; in the next game, he played a dozen balls, scored 29, and finished not out.

Thoughts on Comeback and Development

The current series has seen Banton return to the nation in which he made his international debut in late 2019. Since then, he moved away of the side, had a short comeback in 2022 and then spent more than three years in the wilderness before coming back for the new captain's first T20 as skipper. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. It feels like a lot has happened in that period. 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 finding my way.”

Backing from Team Management

And now, he has been given something new to tackle. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach's skill to put him at ease while he figures out how best to grasp it. “The coach approached me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and express yourself.’ It's reassuring to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I know it’s just a brief comment from the staff, but it provides the support that if it doesn't work, it’s not the end of the world. It is so minor but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the backing from the head coach and I can step up and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

Following the initial matches of the series at the South Island ground, a venue with unusually long boundaries, England finish the series on Thursday at the Auckland arena, a dual-purpose rugby and cricket ground where the field edge at 55m is among the most compact in the world. With uncertain weather and an new location they have abandoned their usual practice of revealing their lineup two days in advance while they determine if their preferred team for this match will be the same as the side that started the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they travel to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to one-day internationals, with a slightly amended team: three players are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith join the squad. Three of those players arrived in the city on the same day but the timing of the bowler's Ashes preparations means he will follow two days later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, fast bowlers who are also building towards the longer format in the away series but are not in the limited-overs team. As a result he will be absent for the first match at Bay Oval, the stadium where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.