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The English side's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month led them on midweek to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to hold the final practice run before their third game against the Kiwis inside. It is not always obvious what purpose these two-team contests 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 New Role: From Opener to Middle Order

The cricketer says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the kind of line often repeated even by athletes who have already reached the pinnacle of their sport, in his situation it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a frontline hitter, mostly as an starting player, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar role, coming in at the middle order. “I didn't have too many conversations,” 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 the summer, 87% of Banton’s 162 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, a further portion at third position and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at No 7 in a T20 Blast game eight years ago – at fourth place. If the team intend to retain him in this altered role he requires every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he concluded, “is a much tougher than opening.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

Banton said that “sometimes where it works well and it appears brilliant and other times where it fails”, and the initial matches of the tour in New Zealand have featured one of each. In the first, he lasted nine balls and scored nine runs before getting out to the deep fielder; in the second, he faced a dozen balls, hit runs, and finished not out.

Thoughts on Return and Development

The current series has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he first played for his country in late 2019. Since then, he drifted back out 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 initial match as skipper. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. It feels like a lot has occurred in that period. 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 Team Management

Currently, he has been given something new to tackle. Banton is thankful to have been given another chance, and also for the coach's ability to make him comfortable while he works out how best to grasp it. “The coach came up to me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Go out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment someone says, but it gives me the backing that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not a disaster. It is so small but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the backing from the manager and I can go out and do it.’”

Venue Change and Team Selection

Following the initial matches of the series at the South Island ground, a venue with unusually long boundaries, England complete it on Thursday at the Auckland arena, a dual-purpose sports facility where the straight boundary at 55m is among the shortest in the sport. With changeable conditions and an new location they have dropped their recent habit of announcing their team two days in advance while they determine if their ideal XI here will be the identical as the side that started both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for ODI Series

On Friday, they move to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to one-day internationals, with a slightly amended team: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt drop out, while four others join the squad. Most newcomers landed in Auckland on the same day but the scheduling of Archer’s Ashes preparations means he will follow later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also building towards the longer format in Australia but are not in the limited-overs team. Consequently he will be absent for the opening game at the venue, the ground where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in a few years back.