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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 New Zealand's largest city, where they were compelled to hold the last practice run ahead of their next match against New Zealand indoors. It is not always obvious what role these two-team contests fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this occasion, for at least one of the players, that is no concern.

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

Tom Banton says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the type of statement often repeated even by athletes who have already reached the peak of their game, in his situation it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, primarily as an opener, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar role, coming in at five or six. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Before his recall in the summer, 87% of Banton’s 162 senior T20 innings had been as an starting batsman, another 8% at No3 and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at No 7 in a T20 Blast game previously – at fourth place. If the team intend to retain him in this new position he needs every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has figured out a key point: “Playing down the order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in the Tour

Banton said that “sometimes where it comes off and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the winter in New Zealand have seen both outcomes. In the opener, he faced nine balls and scored a low score before holing out to long-on; in the second, he played a dozen balls, scored 29, and ended the innings not out.

Reflections on Comeback and Development

The current series has witnessed Banton return to the nation in which he made his international debut in late 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the team, had a short comeback in recently and then spent a long period in the sidelines before coming back for the new captain's first T20 as England captain. “During the journey, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. Seems a lot has occurred in that period. I’ve learned a lot about me. 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 finding my way.”

Backing from Team Management

And now, he has been given a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for Brendon McCullum’s skill to make him comfortable while he figures out how best to grasp it. “The coach came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and play your natural game.’ It's reassuring 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 work, it’s not the end of the world. It’s something so small but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can go out and do it.’”

Venue Change and Squad Decisions

After playing the initial matches of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, England complete it on Thursday at the Auckland arena, a dual-purpose sports facility where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the shortest in the world. With changeable conditions and an new location they have dropped their recent habit of announcing their team ahead of time while they work out if their ideal XI for this match will be the same as the one that started the earlier fixtures.

Upcoming Changes for ODI Series

On Friday, they travel to the coastal town and turn focus to one-day internationals, with a slightly amended squad: three players are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith join the squad. Three of those players landed in the city on Wednesday but the scheduling of the bowler's Test match buildup implies he will follow two days later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, fast bowlers who are also building towards the Tests in Australia but are excluded from the limited-overs team. As a result Archer will miss the first match at Bay Oval, the ground where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in a few years back.