England Postpone Squad Announcement for Upcoming T20 Match as Weather Force Inside Training
The English side's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in February led them on Wednesday to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were compelled to conduct the last training session ahead of their next match against New Zealand indoors. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these bilateral series fulfill, what useful lessons could possibly be gained – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.
Tom Banton's New Role: Starting Batsman to Lower Down
Tom Banton says he is “still learning now”, 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 certainly accurate. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, mostly as an opener, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new role, batting at five or six. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘You’re going to bat in the middle order now.’”
Before his recall in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, a further portion at third position and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game previously – at fourth place. If the team intend to keep him in this altered role he needs every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has figured out one thing: “Playing down the order,” he concluded, “is a much tougher 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 on other occasions where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the winter in the host nation have seen one of each. In the first, he faced nine balls and scored nine runs before getting out to the deep fielder; in the second, he played 12 deliveries, hit runs, and finished not out.
Thoughts on Return and Development
The current series has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he made his international debut 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 returning for the new captain's initial match as skipper. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “It was six years ago when I made my debut. Seems a lot has happened in that time. I’ve learned a lot about myself. The period after I got dropped from England was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year stretch where I was working myself out.”
Support from Team Management
And now, 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 figures out how best to seize the opportunity. “The coach came up to me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Head out and express yourself.’ It's reassuring to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I know it’s only a small thing from the staff, but it gives me the backing that if it doesn't work, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can step up and perform.’”
Shift in Location and Team Selection
Following the initial matches of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, England finish the series on Thursday at Eden Park, a dual-purpose sports facility where the field edge at a short distance is among the most compact in the sport. With changeable conditions and an unfamiliar venue they have abandoned their recent habit of revealing their lineup two days in advance while they determine if their preferred team here will be the same as the side that started both previous games.
Squad Adjustments for ODI Series
On Friday, they travel 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 come in. Most newcomers arrived in Auckland on the same day but the scheduling of the bowler's Test match buildup means he will arrive two days later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also building towards the Tests in Australia but are not in the white-ball squad. Consequently he will be absent for the opening game at Bay Oval, the stadium where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in a few years back.