The English side's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in India in the coming month brought them on midweek to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were compelled to hold the final practice run before their third game against New Zealand indoors. It is not always obvious what role these two-team contests fulfill, what useful lessons could possibly be learned – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is not an issue.
Tom Banton says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the type of statement often repeated even by players who have long since scaled the pinnacle of their sport, in his case it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a top-order batter, mostly as an opener, Banton now occupies a totally new position, coming in at the middle order. “I didn't have too many discussions,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the squad 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 third position and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game previously – at No 4. If England intend to keep 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 opening.”
The player noted that “there’s going to be times where it comes off and it looks great and other times where it fails”, and the first two games of the winter in the host nation have seen both outcomes. In the opener, he lasted a few deliveries and scored a low score before getting out to the deep fielder; in the second, he faced a dozen balls, hit runs, and ended the innings unbeaten.
This tour has witnessed Banton return to the nation in which he first played for his country in November 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the side, had a short comeback in 2022 and then passed a long period in the wilderness before returning for Harry Brook’s first T20 as skipper. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. It feels like a lot has happened in that time. I've discovered a lot about myself. The few years after I was left out from England was a difficult phase for me. I had a couple of years stretch where I was finding my way.”
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 ability to make him comfortable while he works out how best to seize the opportunity. “The coach approached me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Head out and express yourself.’ It's reassuring to have that freedom,” 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 a disaster. It is so minor but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can go out and do it.’”
Following the first two games of the series at the South Island ground, 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 straight boundary at 55m is among the shortest in the world. With uncertain weather and an new location they have abandoned their usual practice of revealing their team ahead of time while they determine if their ideal XI for this match will be the identical as the side that started the earlier fixtures.
On Friday, they move to the coastal town and turn focus to one-day internationals, with a somewhat changed team: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt drop out, 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 timing of the bowler's Test match buildup means he will arrive later, flying with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also preparing for the Tests in the away series but are not in the white-ball squad. As a result he will be absent for the first match at Bay Oval, the ground where he was subjected to abuse on his sole prior visit, in 2019.
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