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England's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in February brought them on midweek to a cool, drizzly Auckland, where they were compelled to hold the final training session before their next match against New Zealand indoors. The purpose isn't always clear what role these two-team contests serve, what useful lessons could possibly be learned – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is not an issue.

Tom Banton's Changed Position: Starting Batsman to Lower Down

The cricketer says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the type of statement often repeated even by players who have already reached the pinnacle of their sport, in his case it is undeniably true. After building his name as a frontline hitter, mostly as an starting player, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar role, coming in at five or six. “I didn't have too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘You’re going to bat in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Prior to returning in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, another 8% at third position and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at No 7 in a T20 Blast game eight years ago – at No 4. If the team plan to keep him in this altered role he requires every chance to become accustomed to it, and he has already worked out a key point: “Batting in the middle order,” he concluded, “is a much tougher than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it fails”, and the first two games of the winter in New Zealand have seen one of each. In the opener, he lasted nine balls and made a low score before getting out to long-on; in the next game, he played a dozen balls, hit runs, and ended the innings not out.

Thoughts on Comeback and Development

The current series has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he first played for his country in November 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the side, made a brief return in recently and then passed a long period in the sidelines before coming back for the new captain's first T20 as skipper. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “It was six years ago 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 the national team was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year period where I was finding my way.”

Backing from Team Management

And now, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to tackle. Banton is grateful to have been offered a return, and also for Brendon McCullum’s skill to make him comfortable while he works out how best to seize the opportunity. “Baz came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and express yourself.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s only a small thing someone says, but it provides the backing that if it doesn't work, it’s not a disaster. It is so minor but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the manager and I can step up and perform.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

Following the initial matches of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with expansive playing area, England complete it on Thursday at the Auckland arena, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the field edge at a short distance is among the shortest in the world. With changeable conditions and an unfamiliar venue they have abandoned their usual practice of announcing their lineup two days in advance while they determine if their preferred team here will be the same as the one that began both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

Next, they move to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, with a somewhat changed team: three players are omitted, while four others come in. Three of those players landed in Auckland on Wednesday but the scheduling of the bowler's Ashes preparations means he will follow two days later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, fast bowlers who are also building towards the Tests in Australia but are excluded from the limited-overs team. Consequently he will be absent for the opening game at the venue, the ground where he was racially abused on his sole prior visit, in a few years back.