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England's preparations for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in India in the coming month led them on midweek to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were forced to conduct the final practice run before their next match against the Kiwis indoors. 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 one of the players, that is no concern.

Tom Banton's New Role: Starting Batsman to Lower Down

The cricketer says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the kind of line regularly trotted out even by players who have long since scaled the pinnacle of their sport, 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 position, coming in at five or six. “I didn't have too many conversations,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the squad and told, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Before his recall in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s 162 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 T20 Blast game previously – at fourth place. If England intend 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 lot harder than starting the innings.”

Mixed Results in the Tour

Banton said that “sometimes where it works well and it looks great and other times where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the winter in the host nation have seen both outcomes. In the opener, he lasted a few deliveries and scored a low score before getting out to long-on; in the next game, he faced 12 deliveries, scored 29, and finished not out.

Thoughts on Return and Growth

The current series has seen Banton come back to the country in which he made his international debut in November 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the side, made a brief return in recently and then spent a long period in the wilderness before coming back for the new captain's initial match as England captain. “During the journey, it was strange,” he said. “It was six years ago when I made my debut. Seems a lot has happened in that period. I’ve learned a lot about me. The few years after I got dropped from the national team was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year stretch where I was finding my way.”

Support from Coaching Staff

Currently, he has been given a fresh challenge to tackle. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach's ability 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 play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I know it’s only a small thing someone says, but it provides the backing that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not a disaster. It is so minor but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the approval from the head coach and I can step up and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

Following the first two games of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, the visitors 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 sport. With uncertain weather and an new location they have abandoned their recent habit of revealing their team ahead of time while they determine if their ideal XI for this match will be the identical as the side that began the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for ODI Series

On Friday, they travel to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to ODIs, with a slightly amended squad: three players drop out, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith come in. Three of those players arrived in Auckland on the same day but the scheduling of Archer’s Test match buildup means he will arrive two days later, flying with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, fast bowlers who are also building towards the Tests in the away series but are not in the limited-overs team. As a result he will miss the first match at the venue, the stadium where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in 2019.