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England's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month brought them on midweek to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were compelled to conduct the final training session ahead of their third game against the Kiwis inside. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these bilateral series 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: From Opener to Lower Down

Tom Banton 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 situation it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, mostly as an opener, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new position, coming in at the middle order. “There weren’t really 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 June, 87% of Banton’s 162 senior T20 innings had been as an starting batsman, a further portion at third position and the rest – but for a brief stint at No 7 in a domestic T20 game previously – at fourth place. If the team intend to retain him in this new position he needs every chance to get used to it, and he has already worked out a key point: “Playing down the order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than opening.”

Mixed Results in New Zealand

The player noted that “sometimes where it comes off and it looks great and on other occasions where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the tour in the host nation have seen 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 faced 12 deliveries, hit runs, and ended the innings not out.

Thoughts on Comeback and Development

This tour has witnessed Banton return to the nation in which he made his international debut in November 2019. After that, he moved away of the team, made a brief return in recently and then spent more than three years in the sidelines 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 time. I've discovered a lot about me. The period after I got dropped from the national team was a difficult phase 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 a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is grateful to have been offered a return, and also for Brendon McCullum’s skill to put him at ease while he works out how best to grasp it. “Baz approached me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Head out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice 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’s something so small but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the backing from the manager and I can go out and perform.’”

Venue Change and Team Selection

After playing the first two games of the contest at the South Island ground, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, the visitors finish the series on Thursday at Eden Park, a dual-purpose rugby and cricket ground where the field edge at 55m is among the most compact in the world. With changeable conditions and an new location they have abandoned their usual practice of announcing their team ahead of time while they determine if their preferred team here will be the same as the one that started the earlier fixtures.

Upcoming Changes for ODI Series

Next, they travel to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to ODIs, with a slightly amended squad: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt drop out, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith come in. Most newcomers landed in Auckland on the same day but the timing of the bowler's Test match buildup means he will follow two days later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also building towards the longer format in Australia but are not in the limited-overs team. As a result he will miss the first match at the venue, the ground where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in 2019.