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England'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 forced to conduct the final practice run before their third game against New Zealand indoors. The purpose isn't always clear what role these two-team contests serve, what valuable insights could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.

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

Tom Banton says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the type of statement often repeated even by athletes who have long since scaled the pinnacle of their sport, in his situation it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, mostly as an opener, Banton now occupies a totally new position, batting 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.’”

Before his recall in June, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, another 8% at third position and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at No 7 in a T20 Blast game previously – at No 4. If England intend to keep him in this altered role he needs every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Playing down the order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than opening.”

Mixed Results in New Zealand

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it looks great and on other occasions where it fails”, and the first two games of the tour in the host nation have featured both outcomes. In the opener, he lasted nine balls and scored nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the second, he faced a dozen balls, hit runs, and ended the innings not out.

Reflections on Comeback and Development

The current series has seen Banton come back to the country in which he made his international debut in late 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the team, had a short comeback in 2022 and then spent more than three years in the wilderness before returning for the new captain's initial match as skipper. “During the journey, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. It feels like a lot has happened in that time. I’ve learned a lot about myself. The period 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 Team Management

Currently, he has been given something new to tackle. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for Brendon McCullum’s ability to make him comfortable while he figures out how best to grasp it. “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 from the staff, but it gives me the support that if it doesn't work, it’s not a disaster. It is so small but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the approval from the head coach and I can go out 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 finish the series on Thursday at Eden Park, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at 55m is among the shortest in the world. With uncertain weather and an new location they have dropped their usual practice of revealing their lineup ahead of time while they work out if their ideal XI here will be the same as the one that began both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for ODI Series

On Friday, they travel to the coastal town and shift attention to one-day internationals, with a slightly amended team: three players are omitted, while four others come in. Most newcomers landed in Auckland on the same day but the scheduling of Archer’s Test match buildup implies he will arrive two days later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, fast bowlers who are also preparing for the Tests in Australia but are not in the limited-overs team. Consequently he will miss the opening game at Bay Oval, the stadium where he was racially abused on his sole prior visit, in a few years back.