England Postpone Squad Reveal for Upcoming T20 Match as Weather Compel Inside Practice
England's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in India in the coming month led them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly Auckland, where they were compelled to hold the final practice run ahead of their third game against New Zealand inside. It is not always obvious what role these bilateral series serve, what useful lessons could possibly be learned – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is no concern.
The Batter's Changed Position: From Opener to Middle Order
Tom Banton says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the type of statement regularly trotted out even by athletes who have already reached the pinnacle of their sport, in his case it is undeniably true. After building his name as a frontline hitter, primarily as an starting player, Banton now occupies a totally new position, batting at five or six. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the squad and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the lower batting lineup now.’”
Before his recall in the summer, 87% of Banton’s 162 professional T20 appearances had been as an opener, a further portion at No3 and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game eight years ago – at fourth place. If England plan to retain him in this new position he needs every chance to get used to it, and he has already worked out a key point: “Batting in the middle order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than opening.”
Varied Performances in New Zealand
Banton said that “sometimes where it comes off and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it fails”, and the initial matches of the winter in New Zealand have featured one of each. In the first, he lasted nine balls and scored a low score before getting out to long-on; in the next game, he played 12 deliveries, hit runs, and finished not out.
Reflections on Comeback and Growth
This tour has seen Banton return to the country in which he first played for his country in November 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the team, made a brief return in 2022 and then spent more than three years in the sidelines before coming back for Harry Brook’s first T20 as skipper. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “It was six years ago when I started internationally. Seems a lot has occurred in that time. I've discovered a lot about myself. The period after I was left out from England was a difficult phase for me. I had a two- to three-year stretch where I was working myself out.”
Support from Coaching Staff
Currently, he has been given something new to tackle. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach's skill to make him comfortable while he figures out how best to seize the opportunity. “Baz came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Head out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment from the staff, but it provides the backing that if it doesn't work, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so small but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the backing from the manager and I can step up and do it.’”
Venue Change and Squad Decisions
After playing the initial matches of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with unusually long boundaries, England finish the series on Thursday at the Auckland arena, a dual-purpose rugby and cricket ground where the field edge at 55m is among the most compact in the sport. With uncertain weather and an unfamiliar venue they have dropped 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 one that began the earlier fixtures.
Squad Adjustments for ODI Series
On Friday, they move to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, with a somewhat changed squad: three players are omitted, while four others come in. Most newcomers arrived in Auckland on Wednesday but the timing of Archer’s Ashes preparations implies he will arrive later, flying 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. As a result he will miss the first match at the venue, the stadium where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in a few years back.
