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The English side's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in February led them on Wednesday to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were compelled to hold the last training session before their next match against the Kiwis indoors. It is not always obvious what role these two-team contests fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.

The Batter's Changed Position: Starting Batsman to Lower Down

Tom Banton says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the kind of line often repeated even by players who have already reached the peak of their sport, in his case it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a frontline hitter, mostly as an opener, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar position, coming in at five or six. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the squad and informed me, ‘You’re going to bat in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Prior to returning in the summer, 87% of Banton’s over 160 senior T20 innings 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 eight years ago – at fourth place. If England plan to keep him in this new position he needs every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has figured out one thing: “Playing down the order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than opening.”

Mixed Results in New Zealand

Banton said that “sometimes where it comes off and it looks great and on other occasions where it fails”, and the initial matches of the tour in New Zealand have featured one of each. In the opener, he lasted nine balls and scored a low score before getting out to the deep fielder; in the second, he faced 12 deliveries, scored 29, and finished not out.

Thoughts on Comeback and Development

This tour has witnessed Banton return to the nation in which he first played for his country in November 2019. After that, he moved away of the side, had a short comeback in 2022 and then passed a long period in the sidelines before returning for Harry Brook’s initial match as skipper. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. Seems a lot has occurred in that time. 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 couple of years stretch where I was working myself out.”

Support from Coaching Staff

Currently, he has been assigned something new to tackle. Banton is grateful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach's skill to put him at ease while he works out how best to grasp it. “The coach came up to me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Head out and express yourself.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s only a small thing from the staff, 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 head coach and I can go out and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

Following the initial matches of the contest at the South Island ground, a venue with unusually long boundaries, the visitors complete it on Thursday at Eden Park, a dual-purpose rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the shortest in the world. With uncertain weather and an new location they have abandoned their recent habit of revealing their lineup two days in advance while they work out if their preferred team here will be the same as the side that began the earlier fixtures.

Upcoming Changes for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they travel to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to one-day internationals, with a somewhat changed squad: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt are omitted, while four others join the squad. Three of those players arrived in Auckland on Wednesday but the timing of the bowler's Ashes preparations means he will follow two days later, flying with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also preparing for the longer format in Australia but are excluded from the white-ball squad. As a result he will be absent for the first match at Bay Oval, the ground where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in a few years back.