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England's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month led them on midweek to a chilly, rainy New Zealand's largest city, where they were compelled to conduct the last practice run 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 learned – but on this occasion, for at least one of the players, 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 kind of line often repeated even by athletes who have long since scaled the pinnacle of their game, in his situation it is certainly accurate. After forging his reputation as a frontline hitter, primarily as an starting player, Banton now occupies a totally new role, coming in at the middle order. “I didn't have too many discussions,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and told, ‘You’re going to bat in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Before his recall in June, the vast majority of Banton’s 162 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, another 8% at third position and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game previously – at fourth place. If the team intend to keep him in this new position he needs every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Playing down the order,” he surmised, “is a lot harder than opening.”

Mixed Results in New Zealand

Banton said that “sometimes where it comes off and it appears brilliant and other times where it doesn’t”, and the first two games of the winter in New Zealand have seen both outcomes. In the first, he lasted a few deliveries and scored nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he played a dozen balls, scored 29, and finished not out.

Reflections on Comeback and Growth

The current series has seen Banton return to the country in which he first played for his country in November 2019. After that, he moved away of the team, had a short comeback in recently and then passed a long period in the sidelines before returning for Harry Brook’s first T20 as skipper. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. Seems a lot has happened in that period. I’ve learned a lot about myself. The few years after I got dropped from England was a tough time for me. I had a couple of years period where I was working myself out.”

Support from Coaching Staff

Currently, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach's skill to make him comfortable while he works out how best to grasp it. “The coach came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and express yourself.’ It’s nice to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment someone says, but it gives me the support that if it doesn't work, it’s not the end of the world. It’s something so minor but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the manager and I can go out and perform.’”

Venue Change and Team Selection

After playing the first two games of the series at the South Island ground, a venue with unusually long boundaries, the visitors finish the series on the next day at Eden Park, a multi-use 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 dropped their usual practice of revealing their team ahead of time while they work out if their ideal XI for this match will be the same as the side that started both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they move to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to one-day internationals, with a somewhat changed squad: three players drop out, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith come in. Three of those players arrived in the city on Wednesday but the scheduling of the bowler's Test match buildup means he will follow later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, fast bowlers who are also preparing for the Tests in the away series but are excluded from the white-ball squad. Consequently Archer will be absent for the first match at Bay Oval, the ground where he was racially abused on his sole prior visit, in a few years back.