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England's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month brought them on Wednesday to a chilly, rainy New Zealand's largest city, where they were compelled to hold the last training session ahead of their third game against New Zealand inside. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these bilateral series fulfill, what useful lessons could possibly be learned – but on this occasion, for at least one of the players, that is not an issue.

The Batter's Changed Position: From Opener to Lower Down

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 peak of their game, in his case it is certainly accurate. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, primarily as an opener, Banton now occupies a totally new position, batting at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the squad and told, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Before his recall in June, 87% of Banton’s 162 professional T20 appearances had been as an opener, another 8% at No3 and the rest – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game previously – at fourth place. If the team plan to retain him in this new position he needs every chance to get used to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he surmised, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in the Tour

The player noted that “there’s going to be times where it comes off and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the tour in New Zealand have seen both outcomes. In the first, he lasted a few deliveries and scored a low score before holing out to long-on; in the second, he played 12 deliveries, hit runs, and finished unbeaten.

Thoughts on Return and Growth

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, made a brief return in recently and then passed a long period in the sidelines before returning for the new captain's initial match as England captain. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “It was six years ago when I started internationally. Seems a lot has happened in that time. I’ve learned a lot about me. The period after I was left out from the national team was a difficult phase for me. I had a couple of years period where I was finding my way.”

Support from Coaching Staff

Currently, he has been given something new to tackle. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach's ability to put him at ease while he works out how best to grasp it. “The coach came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and express yourself.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s only a small thing from the staff, but it gives me the support that if it doesn't work, it’s not the end of the world. It’s something so minor but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the approval from the head coach and I can step up and perform.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

After playing the first two games of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with unusually long boundaries, England complete it on Thursday at the Auckland arena, a multi-use sports facility where the straight boundary at 55m is among the most compact in the world. With changeable conditions and an new location they have abandoned their recent habit of announcing their team ahead of time while they work out if their ideal XI here will be the same as the one that started the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

Next, they travel to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, with a somewhat changed team: three players drop out, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith come in. Three of those players arrived in Auckland on Wednesday but the scheduling of the bowler's Test match buildup implies he will follow later, flying with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also building towards the longer format in the away series but are excluded from the white-ball squad. As a result Archer will be absent for the first match at the venue, the stadium where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.