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The English side's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month brought them on midweek to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were compelled to conduct the last practice run before their third game against New Zealand indoors. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these bilateral series fulfill, 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 Changed Position: From Opener to Lower Down

The cricketer says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the type of statement regularly trotted out even by athletes who have already reached the peak of their sport, in his case it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, 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 squad and told, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Before his recall in June, 87% of Banton’s over 160 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, another 8% at third position and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game eight years ago – at No 4. If the team intend to keep him in this new position he needs every chance to become accustomed to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Playing down the order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than starting the innings.”

Mixed Results in the Tour

The player noted that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it fails”, and the first two games of the winter in the host nation have featured one of each. In the opener, he faced a few deliveries and made nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he played a dozen balls, hit runs, and finished unbeaten.

Reflections on Return and Growth

This tour has witnessed Banton return to the nation in which he first played for his country in November 2019. Since then, he moved away of the team, had a short comeback in recently and then spent more than three years in the sidelines 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. It feels like a lot has occurred in that time. I've discovered a lot about me. The period after I got dropped from the national team was a difficult phase for me. I had a couple of years stretch where I was finding my way.”

Backing from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been given a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach's ability to make him comfortable while he figures out how best to seize the opportunity. “The coach came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” 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 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 step up and perform.’”

Venue Change and Team Selection

After playing the initial matches of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with unusually long boundaries, England finish the series on Thursday at Eden Park, a multi-use sports facility where the field edge at 55m is among the shortest in the sport. With uncertain weather and an new location they have abandoned their usual practice of revealing their team ahead of time while they work out if their preferred team here will be the same as the side that began both previous games.

Upcoming Changes for ODI Series

On Friday, they move to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, with a slightly amended team: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt drop out, while four others come in. Three of those players arrived in the city on Wednesday but the scheduling of the bowler's Ashes preparations implies he will arrive two days later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, 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 a few years back.