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The English side's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month brought them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly Auckland, where they were compelled to conduct the final training session before their next match against the Kiwis inside. It is not always obvious what role these two-team contests serve, what useful lessons could possibly be learned – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is not an issue.

Tom Banton's New Role: Starting Batsman to Lower Down

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 pinnacle of their game, in his situation it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a frontline hitter, mostly as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a completely unfamiliar role, coming in at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the squad and told, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Before his recall in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, another 8% at No3 and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game eight years ago – at fourth place. If England 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: “Playing down the order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in the Tour

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it comes off and it appears brilliant and other times where it doesn’t”, and the first two games of the tour in New Zealand have featured both outcomes. In the opener, he lasted a few deliveries and made a low score before holing out to the deep fielder; in the second, he played a dozen balls, hit runs, and finished unbeaten.

Thoughts on Return and Development

This tour has seen Banton return to the nation in which he first played for his country in late 2019. After that, he moved away of the side, had a short comeback in recently and then spent a long period in the sidelines before coming back for the new captain's initial match as England captain. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. 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

Currently, he has been assigned something new to work out. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for Brendon McCullum’s ability to put him at ease while he figures out how best to seize the opportunity. “Baz came up to me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Head out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s only a small thing from the staff, but it provides the backing that if it doesn't work, it’s not the end of the world. It’s something so small but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the approval 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 Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with expansive playing area, the visitors complete it on the next day at the Auckland arena, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at 55m is among the most compact in the sport. With uncertain weather and an unfamiliar venue they have dropped their recent habit of revealing their lineup two days in advance while they determine if their preferred team here will be the same as the side that started the earlier fixtures.

Upcoming Changes for One-Day Matches

Next, they move to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to one-day internationals, with a slightly amended team: three players are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith come in. Three of those players landed in Auckland on the same day but the scheduling of the bowler's Ashes preparations implies he will follow two days later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, fast bowlers who are also preparing for the longer format in Australia but are not in the white-ball squad. As a result Archer will miss the opening game at Bay Oval, the stadium where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.