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England's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in February brought them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were compelled to conduct the last training session before their next match against New Zealand indoors. It is not always obvious what role 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 not an issue.

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

Tom Banton says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the type of statement regularly trotted out even by players who have already reached the peak of their game, in his case it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, mostly as an opener, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar position, coming in at the middle order. “I didn't have too many discussions,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and told, ‘Your role will be in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Prior to returning in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s 162 professional T20 appearances had been as an starting batsman, a further portion at third position and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at No 7 in a T20 Blast game previously – at fourth place. If the team plan to retain him in this altered role he requires every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Playing down the order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than opening.”

Mixed Results in New Zealand

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it looks great 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 opener, he faced a few deliveries and scored nine runs before holing out to long-on; in the second, he faced a dozen balls, scored 29, and ended the innings not out.

Thoughts on Comeback and Development

This tour has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he first played for his country in late 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the side, made a brief return in 2022 and then spent more than three years in the wilderness before returning for the new captain's initial match as skipper. “During the journey, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. Seems a lot has happened in that period. I've discovered a lot about me. The few years after I got dropped from England was a difficult phase for me. I had a two- to three-year period where I was finding my way.”

Backing from Coaching Staff

Currently, he has been assigned something new to tackle. Banton is grateful to have been given another chance, and also for the coach's skill to put him at ease 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 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 come off, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so minor but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the head coach and I can go out and perform.’”

Venue Change and Squad Decisions

After playing the initial matches of the series at the South Island ground, a venue with unusually long boundaries, the visitors finish the series on the next day at Eden Park, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the shortest in the world. With changeable conditions and an new location they have dropped their usual practice of revealing their lineup ahead of time while they determine if their preferred team for this match will be the same as the one that began both previous games.

Upcoming Changes for ODI Series

Next, they travel to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, with a somewhat changed squad: three players are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith join the squad. Three of those players arrived in the city on the same day but the timing of Archer’s Ashes preparations means he will arrive two days later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, fast bowlers who are also preparing for the Tests in Australia but are not in the white-ball squad. As a result he will be absent for the opening game at Bay Oval, the stadium where he was subjected to abuse on his sole prior visit, in a few years back.