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The English side's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month brought them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly Auckland, where they were forced to hold the last training session ahead of their third game against the Kiwis indoors. The purpose isn't always clear what role these two-team contests fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this instance, for at least a squad member, that is not an issue.

The Batter's Changed Position: From Opener to Lower Down

The cricketer says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the kind of line often repeated even by players who have long since scaled the peak of their sport, in his case it is undeniably true. After building his name as a frontline hitter, mostly as an opener, Banton suddenly finds himself a completely unfamiliar position, batting at the middle order. “I didn't have too many discussions,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and informed me, ‘You’re going to bat 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 starting batsman, a further portion at No3 and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game previously – at fourth place. If England plan to keep him in this altered role he needs every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has figured out a key point: “Playing down the order,” he concluded, “is a much tougher than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances 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 winter in the host nation have seen one of each. In the first, he lasted a few deliveries and scored nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he faced 12 deliveries, hit runs, and ended the innings unbeaten.

Reflections on Return and Growth

This tour has witnessed Banton return to the nation in which he first played for his country in late 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the side, made a brief return in recently and then passed more than three years in the wilderness before returning for the new captain's first T20 as skipper. “During the journey, it was weird,” he said. “It was six years ago when I made my debut. Seems a lot has occurred in that time. I've discovered a lot about me. The period after I was left out from the national team was a difficult phase for me. I had a couple of years stretch where I was finding my way.”

Support from Team Management

And now, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to tackle. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for Brendon McCullum’s ability to make him comfortable while he figures out how best to grasp it. “Baz came up to me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Go out and play your natural game.’ It's reassuring to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I realize it’s only a small thing from the staff, but it gives me the backing that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the head coach and I can go out and perform.’”

Venue Change and Team Selection

After playing the initial matches of the series at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with expansive playing area, England complete it on the next day at the Auckland arena, a multi-use sports facility where the straight boundary at 55m is among the shortest in the world. With uncertain weather and an unfamiliar venue they have dropped their recent habit of announcing their lineup two days in advance while they work out if their ideal XI here will be the identical as the side that began both previous games.

Upcoming Changes for One-Day Matches

Next, they travel to the coastal town and shift attention to ODIs, with a slightly amended team: three players drop out, while four others join the squad. Three of those players landed in the city on the same day but the timing of the bowler's Ashes preparations means he will arrive two days later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also preparing for the Tests in the away series but are not in the limited-overs team. As a result Archer will miss the opening game at Bay Oval, the ground where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.