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The English side's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in February led them on Wednesday to a chilly, rainy New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to conduct the last training session before their third game against the Kiwis indoors. The purpose isn't always clear what role these two-team contests serve, what valuable insights could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is not an issue.

The Batter's New Role: Starting Batsman to Middle Order

Tom Banton says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the type of statement regularly trotted out even by athletes who have long since scaled the peak of their sport, in his situation it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a frontline hitter, 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 squad and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in June, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 senior T20 innings had been as an starting batsman, a further portion at third position and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game eight years ago – at fourth place. If England plan to keep him in this new position he requires every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has figured out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Mixed Results in the Tour

Banton said that “sometimes 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 first, he faced nine balls and made a low score before getting out to long-on; in the second, he played a dozen balls, hit runs, and finished not out.

Reflections on Comeback and Growth

The current series has seen Banton come back to the country in which he made his international debut 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 wilderness before returning for the new captain's first T20 as England captain. “During the journey, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. Seems a lot has happened in that period. I’ve learned a lot about me. The few years 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.”

Support from Team Management

Currently, he has been assigned something new to work out. Banton is grateful to have been given another chance, and also for Brendon McCullum’s skill to make him comfortable while he works out how best to seize the opportunity. “The coach approached me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Head out and express yourself.’ 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 support that if it doesn't work, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so small but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the backing from the head coach and I can step up and perform.’”

Venue Change and Team Selection

After playing the first two games of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, England finish the series on the next day at Eden Park, a multi-use sports facility where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the most compact in the sport. With changeable conditions and an new location they have abandoned their recent habit of announcing their lineup two days in advance while they determine if their ideal XI here will be the identical as the one that began both previous games.

Upcoming Changes for One-Day Matches

Next, they travel to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to one-day internationals, with a slightly amended team: three players are omitted, while four others come in. Most newcomers arrived in Auckland on the same day but the scheduling of the bowler's Ashes preparations implies he will arrive two days later, flying with two fellow bowlers, fast bowlers who are also preparing for the longer format in the away series but are not in the white-ball squad. As a result he will be absent for the first match at the venue, the ground where he was racially abused on his sole prior visit, in a few years back.