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England's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month brought them on midweek to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to conduct the last training session ahead of their next match against the Kiwis indoors. It is not always obvious what role these two-team contests serve, 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 New Role: Starting Batsman to Middle Order

The cricketer says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the kind of line regularly trotted out even by players who have already reached the peak of their sport, in his case it is certainly accurate. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, mostly as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a completely unfamiliar role, batting at the middle order. “I didn't have too many discussions,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the squad 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, a further portion at third position and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game previously – at fourth place. If the team plan to retain him in this new position he requires every chance to get used to it, and he has already worked out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he surmised, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in the Tour

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it comes off and it looks great and on other occasions where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the winter in the host nation have featured both outcomes. In the opener, he lasted a few deliveries and scored nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he played 12 deliveries, scored 29, and finished unbeaten.

Reflections on Return and Growth

The current series has witnessed Banton come back to the nation in which he first played for his country in November 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the team, made a brief return in recently and then passed more than three years in the wilderness before coming back for the new captain's initial match as England captain. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. It feels like a lot has happened in that period. I’ve learned a lot about myself. The period after I got dropped from the national team was a difficult phase for me. I had a two- to three-year period where I was working myself out.”

Backing from Team Management

And now, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to tackle. Banton is grateful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach's skill to put him at ease while he figures out how best to seize the opportunity. “Baz came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Head out and play your natural game.’ It's reassuring to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment from the staff, but it provides the backing that if it doesn’t come off, it’s not the end of the world. It is so small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the head coach and I can go out and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

After playing the first two games of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with expansive playing area, the visitors finish the series on Thursday at Eden Park, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the shortest in the world. With uncertain weather and an new location they have abandoned their recent habit of revealing their lineup ahead of time while they determine if their preferred team for this match will be the identical as the one that began both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they move to the coastal town and turn focus to ODIs, with a somewhat changed team: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt drop out, while four others come in. Three of those players arrived in the city on Wednesday but the timing of Archer’s Ashes preparations means he will arrive two days later, flying with two fellow bowlers, fast bowlers who are also building towards the Tests in Australia but are not in the white-ball squad. As a result he will be absent for the first match at the venue, the stadium where he was subjected to abuse on his sole prior visit, in 2019.