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The English side's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in February led them on Wednesday to a chilly, rainy New Zealand's largest city, where they were compelled to conduct the last training session ahead of their next match against the Kiwis indoors. 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 “continuing to develop”, and if it is the type of statement regularly trotted out even by athletes who have long since scaled the peak of their game, in his case it is undeniably true. After building his name as a top-order batter, mostly as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new position, batting at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many discussions,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the squad and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in the summer, 87% of Banton’s 162 senior T20 innings 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 retain him in this altered role he needs every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than opening.”

Mixed Results in the Tour

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it comes off and it looks great and on other occasions where it doesn’t”, and the first two games of the tour in the host nation have seen both outcomes. In the opener, he lasted a few deliveries and made nine runs before getting out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he played 12 deliveries, hit runs, and ended the innings not out.

Thoughts on Comeback and Development

This tour has witnessed Banton return to the country in which he first played for his country in late 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the side, had a short comeback in recently and then spent a long period in the sidelines before returning for Harry Brook’s initial match as skipper. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. It feels like a lot has occurred in that period. I’ve learned a lot about me. The few years after I got dropped from England was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year stretch where I was finding my way.”

Backing from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been assigned 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 seize the opportunity. “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 gives me the backing that if it doesn't work, it’s not the end of the world. It is so small but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can go out and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

After playing the initial matches of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with expansive playing area, the visitors complete it on Thursday at Eden Park, a multi-use sports facility where the straight boundary 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 team ahead of time while they work out if their preferred team for this match will be the same as the one that began the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for ODI Series

On Friday, they travel to the coastal town and turn focus to one-day internationals, with a slightly amended squad: three players are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith join the squad. Three of those players arrived in Auckland on the same day but the scheduling of Archer’s Test match buildup implies he will follow two days later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also building towards the Tests in the away series but are excluded from the white-ball squad. Consequently Archer will be absent for the opening game at Bay Oval, the stadium where he was subjected to abuse on his sole prior visit, in 2019.