🔗 Share this article

The English side's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in February led them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly Auckland, where they were forced to conduct the last training session ahead of their third game against New Zealand 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 one of the players, that is no concern.

The Batter's New Role: Starting Batsman to Middle Order

Tom Banton says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the type of statement regularly trotted out even by players who have long since scaled the peak of their sport, in his situation it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a top-order batter, mostly as an opener, Banton now occupies a totally new role, batting at five or six. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and told, ‘You’re going to bat in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in the summer, 87% of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an opener, another 8% at No3 and the rest – but for a brief stint at No 7 in a domestic T20 game previously – at fourth place. If England plan to retain him in this new position he requires every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than opening.”

Mixed Results in the Tour

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it fails”, and the initial matches of the tour in New Zealand have seen one of each. In the first, he faced 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 Return and Development

The current series has witnessed Banton come back to the country in which he first played for his country in November 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the side, made a brief return in 2022 and then spent more than three years in the wilderness before coming back for the new captain's first T20 as skipper. “During the journey, it was weird,” he said. “It was six years ago when I started internationally. Seems a lot has occurred in that time. I've discovered a lot about myself. The period after I was left out from England was a difficult phase for me. I had a two- to three-year stretch where I was working myself out.”

Support 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 skill to make him comfortable while he works out how best to seize the opportunity. “Baz approached me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Head out and express yourself.’ It’s nice to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I know it’s just a brief comment from the staff, but it provides the backing that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so minor but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the approval from the head coach and I can step up and perform.’”

Venue Change and Squad Decisions

Following the first two games of the contest at the South Island ground, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, England complete it on the next day at the Auckland arena, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the field edge at 55m is among the shortest in the sport. With uncertain weather and an new location they have abandoned their recent habit of announcing their team ahead of time while they determine if their preferred team here will be the identical as the one that started the earlier fixtures.

Upcoming Changes for ODI Series

Next, they travel to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to one-day internationals, with a somewhat changed team: three players are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith join the squad. Three of those players arrived in the city on Wednesday but the scheduling of the bowler's Test match buildup means he will follow two days later, flying with two fellow bowlers, fast bowlers who are also building towards the longer format in Australia but are not in the white-ball squad. As a result he will miss the opening game at Bay Oval, the ground where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.