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The English side's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in India in February led them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly Auckland, where they were compelled to hold the final training session before their next match against the Kiwis inside. It is not always obvious what purpose these bilateral series serve, what useful lessons could possibly be gained – but on this occasion, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.

Tom Banton's New Role: Starting Batsman to Middle Order

Tom Banton says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the kind of line regularly trotted out even by players who have long since scaled the peak of their sport, in his case it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a frontline hitter, primarily as an starting player, Banton now occupies a totally new role, coming in at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘You’re going to bat in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an starting batsman, another 8% at third position and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game previously – at fourth place. If the team plan to retain him in this new position he requires every chance to become accustomed to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Batting in the middle 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 looks great and other times where it doesn’t”, and the first two games of the tour in the host nation have featured one of each. In the opener, he lasted a few deliveries and scored nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he faced 12 deliveries, scored 29, and finished unbeaten.

Thoughts on Comeback and Growth

The current series has seen Banton come back to the country in which he made his international debut in late 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the side, made a brief return in recently and then spent more than three years in the wilderness before coming back for the new captain's first T20 as skipper. “During the journey, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. Seems a lot has occurred in that period. I've discovered a lot about myself. The period after I got dropped from England was a difficult phase for me. I had a couple of years stretch where I was working myself out.”

Backing from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been given something new to work out. Banton is grateful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach's ability to put him at ease while he figures 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 reassuring to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment someone says, but it provides the backing that if it doesn't work, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can go out and do it.’”

Venue Change and Squad Decisions

Following the initial matches of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with expansive playing area, the visitors complete it on Thursday at Eden Park, a dual-purpose rugby and cricket ground where the field edge at a short distance is among the most compact in the world. With uncertain weather and an unfamiliar venue they have dropped their usual practice of announcing their team ahead of time while they work out if their preferred team here will be the identical as the side that began both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for ODI Series

On Friday, they move to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, with a somewhat changed team: three players drop out, while four others join the squad. Most newcomers landed in Auckland on Wednesday but the timing of the bowler's Test match buildup implies he will follow later, flying with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also building towards the longer format in the away series but are not in the limited-overs team. As a result he will miss the first match at Bay Oval, the ground where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in a few years back.