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The English side's preparations for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in February brought them on Wednesday to a chilly, rainy New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to conduct the last training session before their next match against the Kiwis indoors. It is not always obvious what purpose these bilateral series serve, what useful lessons could possibly be learned – but on this occasion, for at least a squad member, that is not an issue.

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

Tom Banton says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the kind of line regularly trotted out even by players who have already reached the peak of their game, in his case it is undeniably true. After building his name as a frontline hitter, primarily as an starting player, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar role, batting at five or six. “There weren’t really too many discussions,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the squad and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Before his recall in June, the vast majority of Banton’s 162 senior T20 innings had been as an starting batsman, another 8% at No3 and the rest – but for a brief stint at No 7 in a domestic T20 game previously – at No 4. If the team intend to retain him in this altered role he requires every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has figured out a key point: “Batting in the middle order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Mixed Results 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 first two games of the tour in the host nation have seen one of each. In the first, he lasted nine balls and scored a low score before holing out to the deep fielder; in the second, he faced a dozen balls, scored 29, and finished not out.

Reflections on Comeback and Growth

The current series has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he made his international debut in late 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the team, made a brief return in 2022 and then passed more than three years in the wilderness before coming back for the new captain's initial match as skipper. “During the journey, it was strange,” he said. “It was six years ago when I started internationally. Seems a lot has happened in that time. I've discovered a lot about myself. The few years after I got dropped from England was a difficult phase for me. I had a two- to three-year stretch where I was finding my way.”

Backing from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for Brendon McCullum’s skill to put him at ease while he figures out how best to seize the opportunity. “Baz 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 know 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 small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the head coach and I can go out and perform.’”

Venue Change and Team Selection

After playing the initial matches of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with expansive playing area, the visitors finish the series on Thursday at Eden Park, a multi-use sports facility where the straight boundary at 55m is among the most compact in the sport. With changeable conditions and an new location they have dropped their recent habit of revealing their team two days in advance while they determine if their preferred team for this match will be the same as the side that began both previous games.

Upcoming Changes for One-Day Matches

Next, they move to the coastal town and turn focus to ODIs, with a slightly amended squad: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt drop out, while four others join the squad. Three of those players arrived in Auckland on Wednesday but the timing of the bowler's Test match buildup implies he will follow two days later, flying with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, fast bowlers who are also building towards the longer format in the away series but are not in the limited-overs team. Consequently Archer will be absent for the opening game at Bay Oval, the ground where he was racially abused on his sole prior visit, in 2019.