Tom Banton batting for Somerset in the 2024 T20 Blast

Five years after making his international debut as a teenager, Tom Banton reflects on his 2024 resurgence, maturing as a player, and whether his ILT20 centuries could translate into an England recall.

Tom Banton is currently the most in-form batter on the franchise circuit. After hitting 74 off 52 balls three weeks ago in his second match of the ongoing ILT20 for MI Emirates, he hit his first of two centuries in the competition a week later. In between those two hundreds came a 36-ball 56 before he rounded out the group stage with an unbeaten 84. Going into the knockout stages - which will take place this week - he has 464 runs from 10 innings, comfortably the most of anyone in the competition, striking at 154.66.

While his recent form follows on from the runs he scored over the 2024 English summer, it’s a far cry from where he was even two years ago.

“I hated cricket,” Banton tells Wisden.com of the period after he was dropped by England for the second time in 2022. “I didn’t really enjoy playing it, I just had to do it because it was a job. When you talk to everyone who’s played a lot of cricket for a long period of time, there are moments in your career where you fall out of love with it for a bit and find it again. It was just a weird time in my career, but I have no regrets.”

Getting to that place where burnout affected his performance on the pitch happened early for Banton, and reflects the whirlwind nature of his early career.

In 2019, Banton was the newest phenomenon on the domestic circuit. After tearing up the T20 Blast runs chart that season, scoring his maiden century against Kent aged just 19, he was handed an England cap the following winter in New Zealand on a tour where England were looking beyond their 2019 World Cup core to the players who they hoped would take them through the next cycle. Despite his career still being in its fledgling stages, he was the most talked about young batter in the country, and England’s next great prodigy.

“When everything started out, I was just a professional cricketer playing in the second team but then six months later I was playing for England getting compared to all these sorts of players all around the world and playing in these competitions,” Banton says.

“I was like, this is crazy, a year ago I had just signed a contract and I wasn’t even sure about cricket, and within 12-18 months I was here, there and everywhere playing for England, playing against all these great guys I’ve watched on TV.”

After playing in the New Zealand series where his top score was 31, Banton went straight to the BBL and signed a contract to play in the PSL before the pandemic hit. He played two T20I series in England after international cricket resumed, and while he got out for single-figure scores in the final three matches against Australia, his 71 off 42 against Pakistan, laced with five sixes, seemed to confirm him as a special talent. From there he headed out to the delayed Indian Premier League in which he played two games for Kolkata Knight Riders.

But the runs dried up. Across the 2020 PSL, IPL and 2021 PSL that winter, Banton only scored more than 20 in an innings once. Where just 12 months previously he was being compared to greats, most notably Kevin Pietersen as a tall, swaggering right-hander, 2021 brought those career projections to an abrupt halt.

“I used to log onto Twitter and read that stuff and think, that’s pretty surreal,” says Banton. “You can’t complain if you are being compared to those people but I think if it were to happen to someone else now, I’d like to try and help them out because everyone’s been there, I’ve been there, it was horrible.”

Banton’s early international career was complicated by coinciding with the pandemic and a boom in young English domestic players earning franchise contracts. He’s an archetype of a young player picked off the back of a briefly outstanding record and thrust into the limelight and a huge step-up in competition. Since his last England appearance, there have been several comparative debutants, most recently Jacob Bethell, whose early success in New Zealand is now being tested in India ahead of his first IPL.

“I’m sure people like that [Bethell] have got really good support around them,” says Banton. “I’m not saying people need to feel sorry for me and it was the worst time ever, that is just how it is sometimes. But social media is a huge thing in everyone’s lives right now and it can be taken out of context very quickly. You can’t really do much about that and it’s a tough one I guess but you’ve got to deal with it.”

While the runs Banton has scored on the domestic and franchise circuit haven’t yet translated into an England recall, he’s closer to resuming his international career than he’s been in years. At the same time as England were being bowled out for 97 by India’s spinners in Mumbai, Banton was playing another blistering innings for MI Emirates. He scored 84 off 51 balls, 24 of his runs coming off the 10 balls he faced from Adam Zampa.

“I think it really changed this time last year when I was with this team [MI Cape Town] in the SA20,” says Banton. “Then I came over in the ILT20 with Dubai Capitals for a few games and found a bit of form… Since I haven’t played for England, I’ve not really thought too much about it. The team is so strong and they have really good players and some players who aren’t even there, so for me, I’m finally back to enjoying cricket.

“I love cricket for what it gives me, but if I have a bad day now I’m not coming into the changing room throwing my gloves and kicking off. I just trust the process and do as much training as I can and hopefully, that turns into good performances. But if that’s not to happen for a few games I don’t start overthinking... I speak very closely with Sam Billings, he’s kind of my life advisor as I call him. We joke about it and he’s someone I speak to three times a week. Whenever I’m in London I’ll always see him, I’ll video call him twice a week."

While Banton has remained in demand on the franchise circuit over the last few years, he had found first-class cricket harder to crack, with Somerset’s title-challenging County Championship side proving tough to break into.. He’s previously been open that he has contemplated turning away from the red-ball game and plying his trade exclusively in the limited-overs format.

However, that also changed last year when Banton played 12 Championship matches for Somerset averaging almost 50. Among those games was his starring role in Somerset’s thriller against Surrey.

After scoring an innings-rescuing century on the first day, he damaged his ankle during warm-ups for day three with the match, and Somerset’s title campaign, in the balance. When Somerset collapsed to nine wickets down with their lead still less than 150, Banton hobbled out to bat and scored 46 on one leg, setting the home-side up for a dramatic victory. That match, and Banton’s Championship campaign as a whole, has potentially pushed Banton to not being too far off an England Test call when they next need a new batter.

“I love playing red-ball cricket,” Banton says. “There are times when you’re like, ‘wow, this is hard’ and you go through two, three games with no scores. But then for example last year when we beat Warwickshire on the last day chasing 400 and playing with all my best mates, and then when we were playing against Surrey and we won in the last hour, those are moments that you will never ever be able to recreate in any other environment.”

When Banton returns from Dubai, he will move into a new house before starting the red-ball season with Somerset. Now five and a half years on from his first England call-up and entering the latter part of his 20s, he’s poised for a second wind to deliver on his teenage promise.

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