🔗 Share this article

The English side's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in the coming month led them on Wednesday to a chilly, rainy New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to hold the last practice run before their next match against New Zealand inside. The purpose isn't always clear what role these bilateral series serve, what useful lessons could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is no concern.

Tom Banton's Changed Position: Starting Batsman to Lower Down

The cricketer 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 peak of their game, in his case it is undeniably true. After building his name as a top-order batter, primarily as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a completely unfamiliar role, coming in at the middle order. “I didn't have too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and told, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in June, 87% of Banton’s 162 professional T20 appearances had been as an starting batsman, another 8% at third position and the rest – but for seven balls at No 7 in a T20 Blast game eight years ago – at No 4. 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: “Playing down the order,” he surmised, “is a lot harder than opening.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

The player noted that “there’s going to be times where it comes off and it appears brilliant and other times where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the winter in the host nation have featured one of each. In the first, he lasted nine balls and scored nine runs before getting out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he faced 12 deliveries, hit runs, and ended the innings unbeaten.

Thoughts on Comeback and Growth

The current series has seen Banton return to the country in which he first played for his country in November 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the team, made a brief return in recently and then spent more than three years in the wilderness before coming back for Harry Brook’s initial match as England captain. “During the journey, it was weird,” he said. “It was six years ago when I made my debut. It feels like 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 finding my way.”

Support from Coaching Staff

Currently, he has been given something new to tackle. 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 seize the opportunity. “The coach approached 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 someone says, but it provides the backing that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not the end of the world. It’s something so small 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 Squad Decisions

After playing the first two games of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, the visitors finish the series on the next day at the Auckland arena, a dual-purpose rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at 55m is among the most compact in the sport. With uncertain weather and an unfamiliar venue they have abandoned their recent habit of revealing their lineup ahead of time while they determine if their preferred team for this match will be the identical as the one that started the earlier fixtures.

Upcoming Changes for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they move to the coastal town 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. Three of those players landed in the city on the same day but the timing of Archer’s Test match buildup implies he will follow later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also building towards the longer format in Australia but are excluded from the limited-overs team. Consequently he will be absent for the first match at the venue, the stadium where he was subjected to abuse on his sole prior visit, in a few years back.