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The English side's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in February led them on midweek to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to conduct the final practice run ahead of their next match against the Kiwis inside. It is not always obvious what purpose these bilateral series fulfill, what useful lessons could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is no concern.

Tom Banton's Changed Position: From Opener to Lower Down

The cricketer says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the type of statement regularly trotted out even by players who have long since scaled the peak of their sport, in his case it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a frontline hitter, primarily as an starting player, Banton now occupies a totally new position, batting at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many discussions,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and told, ‘You’re going to bat in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in June, 87% of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an opener, a further portion at No3 and the rest – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game eight years ago – at No 4. If England intend to keep him in this new position he needs every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he surmised, “is a lot harder than opening.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

Banton said that “sometimes where it works well and it looks great and on other occasions where it fails”, and the initial matches of the winter in New Zealand have featured both outcomes. In the opener, he lasted nine balls and scored a low score before getting out to long-on; in the next game, he played 12 deliveries, hit runs, and finished unbeaten.

Thoughts on Comeback and Development

The current series has seen Banton return to the country in which he made his international debut in November 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the team, had a short comeback in 2022 and then passed a long period in the sidelines 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 discovered a lot about myself. The period after I was left out from England was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year stretch where I was working myself out.”

Support from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been given a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is thankful to have been given another chance, and also for the coach's ability to put him at ease while he works out how best to seize the opportunity. “Baz came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and express yourself.’ It's reassuring to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s only a small thing from the staff, but it provides the support that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the head coach and I can go out and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

Following the first two games of the contest at the South Island ground, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, the visitors finish the series on the next day at the Auckland arena, a multi-use sports facility where the field edge at 55m is among the most compact in the world. With uncertain weather and an new location they have abandoned their usual practice of announcing their lineup ahead of time while they determine if their ideal XI for this match will be the same as the one that started the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for ODI Series

Next, they travel to the coastal town and shift attention to one-day internationals, 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 the same day but the timing of Archer’s Test match buildup implies he will follow two days later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, fast bowlers who are also building towards the longer format in the away series but are not in the white-ball squad. Consequently Archer will be absent for the opening game at the venue, the stadium where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in a few years back.