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England's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in February brought them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to hold 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 valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this occasion, for at least one of the players, that is not an issue.

The Batter's New Role: From Opener 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 certainly accurate. After building his name as a frontline hitter, mostly as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new role, batting at the middle order. “I didn't have too many conversations,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the team and told, ‘Your role will be in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Prior to returning in the summer, 87% of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an starting batsman, a further portion at No3 and the rest – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game eight years ago – at fourth place. If the team plan 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 much tougher than opening.”

Mixed Results in the Tour

The player noted that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it appears brilliant and other times where it fails”, and the first two games of the tour in New Zealand have featured both outcomes. In the opener, he faced a few deliveries and made nine runs before getting out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he played a dozen balls, scored 29, and finished unbeaten.

Reflections on Comeback and Growth

The current series has witnessed Banton return to the country in which he first played for his country in November 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the team, made a brief return in 2022 and then passed more than three years in the sidelines before returning for the new captain's initial match as skipper. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. Seems a lot has happened in that period. I’ve learned a lot about me. The period 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.”

Backing from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been given a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is grateful to have been offered a return, and also for Brendon McCullum’s skill to make him comfortable while he figures out how best to grasp it. “Baz came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Head out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s only a small thing someone says, but it gives me the support 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 backing from the head coach and I can go out and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

Following the initial matches of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with expansive playing area, England complete it on the next day at the Auckland arena, a dual-purpose sports facility where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the shortest 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 determine if their preferred team here will be the identical as the side that started the earlier fixtures.

Upcoming Changes for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they travel to the coastal town and turn focus to one-day internationals, with a somewhat changed team: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt are omitted, while four others join the squad. Three of those players landed in the city on the same day but the timing of the bowler's Test match buildup means he will follow two days later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, fast bowlers who are also preparing for the longer format in the away series but are not in the limited-overs team. Consequently Archer will miss the opening game at the venue, the ground where he was racially abused on his sole prior visit, in a few years back.