🔗 Share this article The English Team Postpone Squad Reveal for Latest Twenty20 Match as Conditions Compel Inside Training England's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in the coming month brought them on midweek to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were compelled to conduct the final practice run ahead of their third game against New Zealand inside. It is not always obvious what role these two-team contests fulfill, what useful lessons could possibly be learned – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is no concern. The Batter's Changed Position: Starting Batsman to Middle Order Tom Banton says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the kind of line often repeated even by players who have already reached the pinnacle of their sport, in his case it is certainly accurate. After forging his reputation as a frontline hitter, mostly as an opener, Banton now occupies a totally new position, batting at five or six. “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, the vast majority of Banton’s 162 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, a further portion at third position and the rest – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game previously – at No 4. If England plan to keep him in this new position he needs every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.” Mixed Results in the Tour Banton said that “sometimes where it comes off and it appears brilliant 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 first, he faced a few deliveries and scored a low score before getting out to long-on; in the next game, he faced a dozen balls, hit runs, and finished not out. Reflections on Comeback and Development This tour has witnessed Banton return to the nation in which he first played for his country in November 2019. After that, he moved away of the team, made a brief return in recently and then spent more than three years in the sidelines before coming back for the new captain's initial match as England captain. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. It feels like a lot has happened in that period. I've discovered a lot about myself. The few years after I was left out from England was a difficult phase for me. I had a couple of years stretch where I was working myself out.” Support from Coaching Staff And now, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to tackle. Banton is grateful to have been given another chance, and also for Brendon McCullum’s skill to make him comfortable while he works out how best to grasp it. “Baz approached me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and express yourself.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment from the staff, but it provides the support 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.’” 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 complete it 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 world. With changeable conditions and an unfamiliar venue they have dropped their usual practice of announcing their team two days in advance while they work out if their preferred team here will be the identical as the one that began the earlier fixtures. Squad Adjustments for ODI Series On Friday, they travel to the coastal town and shift attention to ODIs, with a somewhat changed squad: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt drop out, while four others come in. Most newcomers arrived in the city on Wednesday but the scheduling of Archer’s Test match buildup means he will arrive later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, fast bowlers who are also preparing for the longer format in Australia but are not in the white-ball squad. Consequently Archer will be absent for the first match at the venue, the ground where he was subjected to abuse on his sole prior visit, in 2019.