🔗 Share this article England Delay Team Announcement for Upcoming Twenty20 Match as Conditions Force Inside Practice England's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in February led them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly Auckland, where they were compelled to conduct the last training session before their next match against the Kiwis indoors. 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. Tom Banton's New Role: From Opener to Lower Down The cricketer says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the type of statement often repeated even by athletes who have long since scaled the peak of their game, in his case it is undeniably true. After forging his reputation as a frontline hitter, mostly as an opener, Banton suddenly finds himself a completely unfamiliar role, batting at five or six. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the lower batting lineup now.’” Before his recall in June, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an opener, a further portion at third position and the rest – but for a brief stint at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game eight years ago – at No 4. If the team plan to keep him in this new position he needs every chance to become accustomed 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 the Tour Banton said that “sometimes where it works well and it looks great and other times where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the tour in the host nation have featured both outcomes. In the first, he lasted nine balls and made nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he played a dozen balls, hit runs, and ended the innings not out. Thoughts on Return and Growth This tour has seen Banton return to the country in which he made his international debut in November 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the side, made a brief return in 2022 and then spent more than three years in the sidelines before coming back for Harry Brook’s initial match as England captain. “During the journey, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. Seems a lot has occurred in that time. I’ve learned a lot about myself. The period after I got dropped from the national team was a difficult phase for me. I had a two- to three-year stretch where I was working myself out.” Support from Coaching Staff And now, he has been given a fresh challenge to tackle. Banton is grateful to have been given another chance, and also for the coach's ability to make him comfortable 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 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 gives me the support that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not a disaster. It is so small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can step up and do it.’” Venue Change and Team Selection Following the first two games of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with unusually long boundaries, the visitors finish the series on the next day at the Auckland arena, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the field edge at 55m is among the shortest in the world. With changeable conditions and an new location they have abandoned their usual practice of announcing their team ahead of time while they work out if their preferred team for this match will be the identical as the side that began both previous games. Upcoming Changes for ODI Series On Friday, they move to the coastal town and shift attention to one-day internationals, with a slightly amended squad: 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 Auckland on the same day but the scheduling of Archer’s Ashes preparations implies he will arrive two days later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also building towards the Tests in the away series but are excluded from the limited-overs team. Consequently Archer will miss the first match at the venue, the stadium where he was subjected to abuse on his sole prior visit, in a few years back.