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England's preparations for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month led them on Wednesday to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were forced to hold the last training session before their next match against the Kiwis inside. It is not always obvious what purpose these two-team contests fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is not an issue.

Tom Banton's New Role: From Opener to Middle Order

Tom Banton says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the kind of line regularly trotted out even by players who have already reached the pinnacle of their game, in his situation it is certainly accurate. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, mostly as an opener, Banton now occupies a totally new position, coming in at five or six. “There weren’t really too many discussions,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the squad and informed me, ‘You’re going to bat in the middle order now.’”

Before his recall in June, 87% of Banton’s over 160 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, a further portion at third position and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at No 7 in a T20 Blast game eight years ago – at No 4. If the team intend to keep him in this new position he requires every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has figured out one thing: “Playing down the order,” he surmised, “is a lot harder than opening.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it appears brilliant and other times where it fails”, and the first two games of the tour in New Zealand have featured one of each. In the opener, he faced nine balls and scored nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the second, he played 12 deliveries, scored 29, and finished unbeaten.

Thoughts on Comeback and Development

The current series has witnessed Banton return to the country in which he made his international debut in late 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the team, had a short comeback in 2022 and then passed more than three years in the wilderness before returning for the new captain's first T20 as skipper. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “It was six years ago when I started internationally. It feels like a lot has happened in that time. 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.”

Support from Team Management

Currently, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to tackle. Banton is grateful to have been offered a return, and also for Brendon McCullum’s ability to make him comfortable while he works out how best to seize the opportunity. “The coach approached me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I know it’s only a small thing someone says, but it provides the support that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not a disaster. It is so minor but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can step up and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

Following the first two games of the series at the South Island ground, a stadium with expansive playing area, the visitors finish the series on the next day at Eden Park, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at 55m is among the most compact in the sport. With changeable conditions and an new location they have dropped their recent habit of revealing their lineup ahead of time while they determine if their preferred team here will be the identical as the side that started both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they move to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, with a somewhat changed squad: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt are omitted, while four others come in. Three of those players arrived in Auckland on the same day but the scheduling of Archer’s Test match buildup implies he will arrive two days later, flying with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, fast bowlers who are also building towards the Tests in Australia but are excluded from the limited-overs team. Consequently Archer will miss the first match at the venue, the stadium where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in 2019.