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The English side's preparations for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month brought them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly Auckland, where they were forced to conduct the final practice run ahead of their third game against the Kiwis inside. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these two-team contests serve, what valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this occasion, for at least a squad member, that is not an issue.

Tom Banton's Changed Position: From Opener to Middle Order

The cricketer says he is “continuing to develop”, 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 case it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a frontline hitter, primarily as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new role, batting at five or six. “There weren’t really too many discussions,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the squad and informed me, ‘You’re going to bat in the middle order now.’”

Before his recall in June, the vast majority of Banton’s 162 professional T20 appearances had been as an opener, a further portion at No3 and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at No 7 in a domestic T20 game previously – at No 4. 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 a key point: “Batting in the middle order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than opening.”

Mixed Results in the Tour

The player noted that “sometimes where it comes off and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the winter in New Zealand have seen one of each. In the first, he lasted a few deliveries and made nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the second, he faced 12 deliveries, hit runs, and finished unbeaten.

Thoughts on Return and Development

The current series has witnessed Banton come back to the country in which he made his international debut in November 2019. Since then, he moved away of the side, had a short comeback in 2022 and then spent a long period in the wilderness before returning for Harry Brook’s initial match as skipper. “During the journey, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. Seems a lot has happened in that time. I've discovered a lot about myself. The few years after I was left out from the national team was a tough time for me. I had a couple of years stretch where I was working myself out.”

Backing from Team Management

And now, he has been given something new to work out. Banton is grateful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach'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, ‘Go out and express yourself.’ It's reassuring to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I realize it’s only a small thing from the staff, but it gives me the backing that if it doesn't work, it’s not a disaster. It is so minor but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the backing from the manager and I can go out and perform.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

After playing the initial matches of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with unusually long boundaries, England finish the series on the next day at the Auckland arena, a dual-purpose rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the shortest in the sport. With uncertain weather and an new location they have dropped their recent habit of revealing their team two days in advance while they determine if their preferred team here will be the same as the side that started the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

Next, they travel to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, with a somewhat changed squad: three players drop out, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith join the squad. Three of those players arrived in Auckland on Wednesday but the scheduling of the bowler's Ashes preparations implies he will follow 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 he will miss the opening game at Bay Oval, the stadium where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.