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The English side's preparations for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month brought them on midweek to a chilly, rainy New Zealand's largest city, where they were compelled to conduct the last practice run before their next match against the Kiwis indoors. It is not always obvious what role these two-team contests fulfill, what useful lessons could possibly be learned – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.

The Batter's New Role: From Opener 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 game, in his case it is certainly accurate. After forging his reputation as a frontline hitter, primarily as an opener, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar position, coming in at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many discussions,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Before his recall in the summer, 87% of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an opener, a further portion at third position and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at No 7 in a T20 Blast game previously – at No 4. If the team plan to keep 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 concluded, “is a much tougher than opening.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it comes off and it appears brilliant and other times where it fails”, and the initial matches of the winter in New Zealand have featured one of each. In the opener, he lasted a few deliveries and made nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he faced a dozen balls, hit runs, and ended the innings unbeaten.

Reflections on Comeback and Development

The current series has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he made his international debut in late 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the team, had a short comeback in recently and then spent a long period in the sidelines before coming back for the new captain's first T20 as skipper. “During the journey, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. Seems a lot has occurred in that period. I’ve learned a lot about me. The few years after I got dropped from England was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year stretch where I was working myself out.”

Backing from Team Management

Currently, he has been given a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is thankful to have been given another chance, and also for Brendon McCullum’s ability to make him comfortable while he works out how best to seize the opportunity. “Baz approached me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Head out and express yourself.’ It’s nice to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I realize it’s only a small thing from the staff, but it provides the backing that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not the end of the world. It’s something so minor but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can go out and do it.’”

Venue Change and Team Selection

Following the initial matches of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with unusually long boundaries, the visitors complete it on the next day 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 unfamiliar venue they have dropped their usual practice of revealing their team ahead of time while they work out if their ideal XI here will be the identical as the one that started both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for ODI Series

On Friday, they travel to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to one-day internationals, with a somewhat changed team: 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 scheduling of the bowler's Ashes preparations means he will follow two days later, flying with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also preparing for the Tests in Australia but are not in the white-ball squad. As a result he will miss the first match at the venue, the ground where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.