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The English side's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in India in the coming month led them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to hold the final training session ahead of their third game against New Zealand inside. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these two-team contests serve, what valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this occasion, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.

The Batter's Changed Position: From Opener to Middle Order

The cricketer says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the kind of line often repeated even by players who have already reached the peak of their sport, in his case it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a top-order batter, primarily as an opener, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new position, coming in at five or six. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and told, ‘Your role will be in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Prior to returning in the summer, 87% of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an starting batsman, another 8% at No3 and the rest – but for seven balls at No 7 in a domestic T20 game previously – at fourth place. If the team intend to keep him in this new position he needs every chance to become accustomed to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Playing down the order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in the Tour

The player noted that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it doesn’t”, and the first two games of the tour in New Zealand have seen both outcomes. In the opener, he lasted nine balls and made nine runs before holing out to long-on; in the next game, he played a dozen balls, hit runs, and finished unbeaten.

Reflections on Return and Development

This tour has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he made his international debut in late 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the side, made a brief return in 2022 and then passed more than three years in the wilderness before returning for the new captain's initial match as England captain. “During the journey, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. It feels like a lot has happened 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 two- to three-year stretch where I was finding my way.”

Backing from Team Management

Currently, he has been assigned something new to work out. Banton is grateful to have been given another chance, and also for Brendon McCullum’s ability to make him comfortable while he works out how best to seize the opportunity. “Baz approached me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I know 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 is so minor but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can step up and do it.’”

Venue Change and Team Selection

After playing the first two games of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with expansive playing area, the visitors finish the series on the next day at the Auckland arena, a dual-purpose sports facility where the field edge at 55m is among the shortest in the sport. With changeable conditions and an new location they have dropped their usual practice of revealing their lineup ahead of time while they work out if their ideal XI here will be the identical as the side that started both previous games.

Upcoming Changes for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they travel to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to one-day internationals, with a slightly amended squad: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith join the squad. Three of those players arrived in the city on the same day but the scheduling of the bowler's Ashes preparations implies he will follow two days later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, fast bowlers who are also building towards the Tests in Australia but are not in the limited-overs team. Consequently Archer will miss the first match at Bay Oval, the stadium where he was racially abused on his sole prior visit, in 2019.