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England's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in the coming month brought them on Wednesday to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were compelled to conduct the final training session before their next match against the Kiwis indoors. It is not always obvious what purpose these two-team contests serve, what useful lessons could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.

Tom Banton's New Role: From Opener to Lower Down

The cricketer says he is “still learning now”, 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 forging his reputation as a frontline hitter, primarily as an opener, Banton now occupies a totally new position, coming in at the middle order. “I didn't have too many discussions,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘You’re going to bat in the lower batting lineup 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 domestic T20 game previously – at No 4. If England intend to retain him in this new position he requires every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has figured out a key point: “Batting in the middle order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

Banton said that “sometimes where it comes off and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it fails”, and the first two games of the tour in New Zealand have seen both outcomes. In the opener, he faced nine balls and made a low score before holing out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he faced a dozen balls, scored 29, and finished not out.

Thoughts on Comeback and Development

This tour has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he first played for his country in late 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the team, made a brief return in recently and then spent a long period in the sidelines before returning for the new captain's first T20 as England captain. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “It was six years ago when I started internationally. Seems a lot has happened in that period. I’ve learned a lot about me. The period after I was left out from the national team was a difficult phase for me. I had a two- to three-year stretch where I was finding my way.”

Support from Coaching Staff

Currently, he has been assigned something new to tackle. Banton is thankful to have been given another chance, and also for the coach's ability to put him at ease while he figures out how best to seize the opportunity. “The coach came up to me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Go out and play your natural game.’ It's reassuring to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s only a small thing someone says, but it provides the backing that if it doesn't work, it’s not the end of the world. It is so minor but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the manager and I can step up and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

After playing the first two games of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with expansive playing area, the visitors complete it on the next day at Eden Park, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the field edge at 55m is among the most compact in the sport. With changeable conditions and an unfamiliar venue they have dropped their usual practice of announcing their team two days in advance while they determine if their preferred team for this match will be the identical as the one that started the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they move to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to one-day internationals, with a somewhat changed squad: three players drop out, while four others come in. Most newcomers arrived in the city on the same day but the scheduling of Archer’s Ashes preparations means he will follow two days later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, fast bowlers who are also preparing for the Tests in the away series but are not in the limited-overs team. As a result he will be absent for the opening game at Bay Oval, the stadium where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.