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The English side's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in February brought them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to hold the last practice run ahead of their third game against New Zealand inside. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these bilateral series fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is no concern.

Tom Banton'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 sport, in his situation it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, mostly as an starting player, Banton now occupies a totally new role, batting at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Before his recall in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an starting batsman, another 8% at No3 and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at No 7 in a T20 Blast game previously – at No 4. If the team plan to keep him in this new position he requires every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has figured out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than opening.”

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 fails”, and the initial matches of the winter in New Zealand have seen both outcomes. In the opener, he faced nine balls and made a low score before getting out to the deep fielder; in the second, he faced a dozen balls, hit runs, and finished unbeaten.

Thoughts on Return and Growth

This tour has seen Banton come back to the country in which he made his international debut in November 2019. After that, he moved away of the side, made a brief return in recently and then spent a long period in the sidelines before coming back for the new captain's initial match as England captain. “During the journey, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. Seems a lot has occurred in that period. I've discovered a lot about myself. The period after I was left out from the national team was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year period where I was working myself out.”

Support from Team Management

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 ability to put him at ease while he figures out how best to grasp it. “The coach came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and play your natural game.’ It's reassuring to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I know it’s only a small thing from the staff, but it gives me the backing that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not a disaster. It is so small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the head coach and I can step up and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

After playing the first two games of the series at the South Island ground, a stadium with expansive playing area, the visitors finish the series on Thursday at Eden Park, a dual-purpose rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at 55m is among the most compact in the world. With changeable conditions and an new location they have abandoned their usual practice of revealing their team two days in advance while they work out if their ideal XI for this match will be the same as the one that began the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

Next, they travel to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, with a somewhat changed team: three players are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith join the squad. Most newcomers landed in the city on the same day but the scheduling of Archer’s Test match buildup implies he will follow two days later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also building towards the Tests in the away series but are not in 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 sole prior visit, in 2019.