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The English side's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in the coming month brought them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to hold the last practice run before their third game against the Kiwis indoors. The purpose isn't always clear what role these bilateral series fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is not an issue.

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 often repeated even by athletes who have long since scaled the peak of their game, in his case it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a frontline hitter, mostly as an starting player, Banton now occupies a totally new position, batting at five or six. “There weren’t really too many discussions,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Before his recall in June, 87% of Banton’s 162 senior T20 innings 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 domestic T20 game previously – at fourth place. If the team intend to keep him in this altered role he requires every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has figured out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

The player noted that “there’s going to be times where it comes off and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it fails”, and the initial matches of the tour in the host nation have featured both outcomes. In the first, he faced a few deliveries and scored a low score before getting out to long-on; in the second, he faced 12 deliveries, hit runs, and ended the innings not out.

Thoughts on Return and Development

This tour has seen Banton return to the country 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 passed a long period in the sidelines before returning for the new captain's initial match as skipper. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “It was six years ago when I made my debut. Seems a lot has happened in that time. I’ve learned a lot about me. The few years 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 finding my way.”

Backing from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been given something new to tackle. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach's ability to put him at ease while he works out how best to grasp it. “Baz came up to me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Head out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment from the staff, but it provides the backing that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not a disaster. It is so small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the approval from the head coach and I can step up and perform.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

Following the first two games of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with expansive playing area, the visitors 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 uncertain weather and an new location they have dropped their recent habit of revealing their team two days in advance while they work out if their ideal XI here will be the identical as the one that started the earlier fixtures.

Upcoming Changes for One-Day Matches

Next, they move to the coastal town and shift attention to ODIs, with a slightly amended team: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt are omitted, while four others join the squad. Three of those players arrived in the city on Wednesday but the timing of the bowler's Ashes preparations means he will arrive two days later, flying with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also preparing for the longer format in the away series but are not in the white-ball squad. As a result Archer will miss the opening game at Bay Oval, the ground where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.