England Delay Team Announcement for Upcoming T20 Fixture as Conditions Force Indoor Training

England's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in India in the coming month brought them on midweek to a cool, drizzly Auckland, where they were compelled to conduct the last practice run ahead of their third game against the Kiwis indoors. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these two-team contests serve, what valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this occasion, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.

Tom Banton'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 athletes who have long since scaled the peak of their game, in his case it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a top-order batter, mostly as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new position, batting at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the team 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 third position and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game previously – at No 4. If England plan to retain him in this new position he requires every chance to get used to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Playing down the order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

The player noted that “sometimes where it works well and it looks great and on other occasions where it fails”, and the first two games of the tour in New Zealand have featured one of each. In the opener, he faced nine balls and made nine runs before getting out to the deep fielder; in the second, he faced 12 deliveries, hit runs, and ended the innings unbeaten.

Thoughts on Return and Development

This tour has witnessed Banton come back to the nation in which he made his international debut in late 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the side, made a brief return in recently and then passed a long period in the sidelines before coming back for Harry Brook’s first T20 as skipper. “During the journey, it was strange,” he said. “It was six years ago when I started internationally. It feels like a lot has happened in that period. I've discovered a lot about me. The few years after I was left out from the national team was a difficult phase for me. I had a two- to three-year stretch where I was working myself out.”

Backing from Coaching Staff

Currently, he has been given a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is grateful to have been given another chance, and also for the coach's ability to put him at ease while he works out how best to grasp it. “The coach approached me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Go out and express yourself.’ It's reassuring to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment someone says, but it provides the support that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the manager and I can step up and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

After playing the first two games of the contest at the South Island ground, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, the visitors finish the series on Thursday at Eden Park, a multi-use sports facility where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the most compact in the sport. With changeable conditions and an new location they have abandoned their recent habit of revealing their lineup two days in advance while they work out if their preferred team for this match will be the identical as the one that began the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for ODI Series

Next, they move to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to one-day internationals, with a somewhat changed squad: three players drop out, while four others come in. Three of those players landed in Auckland on Wednesday but the timing of the bowler's Ashes preparations means he will arrive two days later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also building towards the Tests in Australia but are excluded from the limited-overs team. Consequently he will miss the first match at Bay Oval, the stadium where he was racially abused on his sole prior visit, in a few years back.