🔗 Share this article

England's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in the coming month brought them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were compelled to hold the last training session ahead of their third game against the Kiwis indoors. It is not always obvious what purpose these bilateral series fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is no concern.

The Batter's New Role: From Opener to Middle Order

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 pinnacle of their game, in his case it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a frontline hitter, mostly as an opener, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new position, coming in at the middle order. “I didn't have too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the squad and informed me, ‘You’re going to bat in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Before his recall in June, the vast majority 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 seventh spot in a T20 Blast game eight years ago – at fourth place. If England intend to retain him in this new position he needs every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has figured out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in the Tour

The player noted that “sometimes where it comes off and it looks great and other times where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the winter in the host nation have seen one of each. In the first, he faced nine balls and made a low score before getting out to the deep fielder; in the second, he faced a dozen balls, 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 November 2019. Since then, he moved away of the side, made a brief return in recently and then passed a long period in the sidelines before returning for the new captain's first T20 as England captain. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. Seems a lot has happened in that time. I’ve learned a lot about myself. The few years after I got dropped from England was a tough time for me. I had a couple of years period where I was working myself out.”

Backing from Team Management

And now, he has been given something new to work out. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for Brendon McCullum’s ability to make him comfortable while he works 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 from the staff, but it provides the support that if it doesn't work, it’s not the end of the world. It is so minor but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can go out and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

After playing 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 sports facility where the straight boundary at 55m is among the most compact in the world. With uncertain weather and an new location they have dropped their usual practice of announcing their lineup two days in advance while they work out if their ideal XI here will be the same as the side that began the earlier fixtures.

Upcoming Changes for ODI Series

On Friday, 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 are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith come in. Three of those players landed in Auckland on Wednesday but the timing of the bowler's Ashes preparations implies he will arrive two days 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 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 sole prior visit, in 2019.