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England's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in the coming month brought them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly 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 role these two-team contests fulfill, what useful lessons 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

Tom Banton 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 peak of their game, in his situation it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a frontline hitter, mostly as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new position, coming in at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many discussions,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the squad and told, ‘You’re going to bat in the middle order now.’”

Before his recall in June, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an opener, another 8% at No3 and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at No 7 in a domestic T20 game eight years ago – at fourth place. If the team plan to retain him in this altered role he requires every chance to get used to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in the Tour

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it comes off and it appears brilliant and other times where it doesn’t”, and the first two games of the tour in New Zealand have seen both outcomes. In the first, he lasted a few deliveries and made a low score before getting out to long-on; in the next game, he played 12 deliveries, scored 29, and finished unbeaten.

Thoughts on Comeback and Development

The current series has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he made his international debut in November 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the side, had a short comeback in 2022 and then passed more than three years in the wilderness before returning 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 started internationally. It feels like a lot has occurred in that period. I’ve learned a lot about myself. The period 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 Team Management

And now, 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 figures out how best to grasp it. “The coach approached me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Head out and play your natural game.’ It's reassuring to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment from the staff, but it gives me the backing 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 approval from the head coach and I can step up and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

After playing the initial matches of the series at the South Island ground, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, the visitors complete it on the next day at the Auckland arena, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at 55m is among the shortest in the sport. With uncertain weather and an unfamiliar venue they have dropped their usual practice of announcing 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 both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they move to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to one-day internationals, with a somewhat changed squad: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith come in. Most newcomers landed in Auckland on the same day but the scheduling of Archer’s Ashes preparations means he will arrive later, flying with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, fast bowlers who are also building towards the Tests in Australia but are excluded from the white-ball squad. As a result Archer will miss the opening game at the venue, the stadium where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in a few years back.