🔗 Share this article

The English side's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in February led them on midweek to a cool, drizzly Auckland, where they were forced to hold the final training session before their third game against the Kiwis inside. The purpose isn't always clear what role these bilateral series fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.

Tom Banton's New Role: From Opener to Middle Order

The cricketer says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the type of statement regularly trotted out even by athletes who have already reached the peak of their game, in his situation it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a frontline hitter, mostly as an starting player, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar position, coming in at five or six. “I didn't have too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘You’re going to bat 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, a further portion at No3 and the rest – but for seven balls at No 7 in a domestic T20 game previously – at fourth place. If the team intend to keep him in this altered role he requires every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has already worked out a key point: “Batting in the middle order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Mixed Results in New Zealand

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it looks great and other times where it doesn’t”, and the first two games of the tour in New Zealand have seen both outcomes. In the opener, he lasted nine balls and scored a low score before getting out to long-on; in the next game, he faced a dozen balls, scored 29, and finished not out.

Thoughts on Comeback and Development

The current series has witnessed Banton come back to the country in which he first played for his country in late 2019. After that, he moved away of the side, made a brief return in 2022 and then passed a long period in the sidelines before coming back for Harry Brook’s initial match as skipper. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. Seems a lot has occurred in that period. I've discovered a lot about myself. The few years after I was left out from the national team was a tough time for me. I had a couple of years stretch where I was working myself out.”

Support from Team Management

And now, he has been given a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is thankful to have been given another chance, and also for the coach's ability to make him comfortable while he works out how best to seize the opportunity. “Baz came up to me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Go out and play your natural game.’ 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 the end of the world. It is so minor but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the manager and I can go out and do it.’”

Venue Change and Squad Decisions

After playing the initial matches of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, the visitors finish the series on Thursday at Eden Park, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the field edge at a short distance is among the most compact in the sport. With uncertain weather and an new location they have abandoned their usual practice of revealing their lineup ahead of time while they determine if their preferred team here will be the same as the one that started the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

Next, they move to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to one-day internationals, with a slightly amended squad: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt are omitted, while four others join the squad. Most newcomers landed in the city on Wednesday but the timing of Archer’s Test match buildup implies he will arrive two days later, flying with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also building towards the longer format in Australia but are excluded from the limited-overs team. As a result Archer will miss the opening game at Bay Oval, the ground where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in 2019.