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England's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in February brought them on midweek to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to conduct the final practice run ahead of their third game against the Kiwis indoors. 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 no concern.

Tom Banton's New Role: Starting Batsman to Middle Order

The cricketer says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the type of statement regularly trotted out even by players who have long since scaled the peak of their game, in his case it is undeniably true. After building his name as a top-order batter, primarily as an opener, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar position, batting at the middle order. “I didn't have too many discussions,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the team and told, ‘You’re going to bat in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, a further portion at third position 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 retain him in this altered role he needs every chance to become accustomed to it, and he has figured out a key point: “Batting in the middle order,” he surmised, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Mixed Results in New Zealand

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 the host nation have featured one of each. In the first, he faced a few deliveries and made a low score before getting out to long-on; in the second, he played a dozen balls, hit runs, and ended the innings not out.

Reflections on Return and Development

This tour has seen Banton come back to the country in which he made his international debut in November 2019. Since then, he moved away of the side, made a brief return in 2022 and then spent more than three years in the wilderness before coming back for the new captain's first T20 as skipper. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. It feels like a lot has happened in that period. I’ve learned a lot about myself. The few years 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.”

Backing from Coaching Staff

Currently, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to tackle. Banton is thankful to have been given another chance, 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 [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Head out and play your natural game.’ It's reassuring to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I know it’s just a brief comment from the staff, but it provides 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 approval from the head coach and I can go out and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

Following the first two games 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 rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the most compact in the sport. With uncertain weather and an unfamiliar venue they have dropped their usual practice of announcing their lineup ahead of time while they work out if their preferred team for this match will be the identical as the side that began both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

Next, they move to the coastal town and turn focus to ODIs, with a slightly amended squad: 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 scheduling of the bowler's Test match buildup implies he will arrive two days later, flying with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also building towards the Tests in Australia but are excluded from the white-ball squad. As a result he will miss the opening game at the venue, the stadium where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in a few years back.