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England's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in February brought them on midweek to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were compelled to conduct the last training session before their third game against the Kiwis inside. It is not always obvious what purpose these two-team contests serve, what useful lessons could possibly be gained – but on this occasion, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.

The Batter's Changed Position: Starting Batsman to Middle Order

Tom Banton says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the type of statement often repeated even by athletes who have long since scaled the peak of their sport, in his case it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a frontline hitter, primarily as an starting player, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar role, batting at five or six. “I didn't have too many discussions,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the squad and told, ‘You’re going to bat in the middle order now.’”

Before his recall in the summer, 87% of Banton’s 162 professional T20 appearances 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 domestic T20 game eight years ago – at No 4. If England intend to keep him in this altered role he needs every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has figured out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Mixed Results in New Zealand

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it fails”, and the first two games of the winter in New Zealand have seen one of each. In the opener, he lasted nine balls and scored a low score before holing out to long-on; in the next game, he played 12 deliveries, scored 29, and finished unbeaten.

Reflections on Return and Growth

The current series has witnessed Banton return to the nation in which he made his international debut in late 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the side, had a short comeback in recently and then passed a long period in the sidelines before coming back for the new captain's first T20 as skipper. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “It was six years ago when I made my debut. Seems a lot has happened in that time. I've discovered a lot about me. The period after I got dropped from the national team was a tough time for me. I had a couple of years period where I was working myself out.”

Support from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been given a fresh challenge to tackle. Banton is grateful to have been given another chance, and also for Brendon McCullum’s ability to put him at ease while he works out how best to grasp it. “The coach came up to me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Head out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I realize it’s only a small thing someone says, but it provides the support that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so minor but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can go out and perform.’”

Venue Change and Team Selection

After playing the initial matches of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, the visitors finish the series on Thursday at the Auckland arena, a dual-purpose rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at 55m is among the shortest in the world. With uncertain weather and an unfamiliar venue they have dropped their usual practice of announcing their team two days in advance while they work out if their ideal XI for this match will be the same as the side that began both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

Next, they move to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, with a slightly amended squad: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith come in. Three of those players landed in the city on Wednesday but the scheduling of the bowler's Test match buildup implies he will arrive later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, fast bowlers who are also building towards the Tests in the away series but are not in the white-ball squad. Consequently 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.