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England's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month brought them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly Auckland, where they were compelled to hold the last practice run before their third game against New Zealand inside. It is not always obvious what purpose these two-team contests fulfill, what useful lessons 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 Lower Down

The cricketer says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the kind of line regularly trotted out even by athletes who have long since scaled the peak of their sport, in his situation it is undeniably true. After building his name as a frontline hitter, primarily as an opener, Banton suddenly finds himself a completely unfamiliar role, coming in at five or six. “I didn't have too many conversations,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the squad and told, ‘You’re going to bat in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in June, the vast majority of Banton’s 162 professional T20 appearances had been as an starting batsman, another 8% at No3 and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at No 7 in a T20 Blast game previously – at No 4. If the team plan to retain him in this new position he requires every possible opportunity to get used 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 comes off and it looks great and on other occasions where it doesn’t”, and the first two games of the tour in the host nation have featured one of each. In the first, he lasted nine balls and made a low score before getting out to the deep fielder; in the second, he played a dozen balls, hit runs, and finished unbeaten.

Reflections on Comeback and Growth

The current series has witnessed Banton come back to the country in which he made his international debut in November 2019. Since then, he moved away of the side, had a short comeback in recently and then spent a long period in the wilderness before returning for Harry Brook’s initial match as England captain. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. It feels like a lot has happened in that period. I’ve learned a lot about me. The few years after I got dropped from the national team was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year period where I was working myself out.”

Backing from Coaching Staff

Currently, he has been given something new to tackle. Banton is thankful to have been given another chance, and also for Brendon McCullum’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, ‘Go out and play your natural game.’ It's reassuring to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I know it’s only a small thing someone says, but it provides 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.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

After playing the first two games of the series at the South Island ground, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, England complete it on the next day at the Auckland arena, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the field edge at 55m is among the most compact in the sport. With changeable conditions and an new location they have dropped their usual practice of revealing their team ahead of time while they work out if their preferred team here will be the same as the one that began the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for ODI Series

Next, they move to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, with a somewhat changed team: three players are omitted, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith join the squad. Most newcomers landed in Auckland on Wednesday but the timing of Archer’s Test match buildup implies he will arrive two days later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also building towards the longer format in Australia but are excluded from the white-ball squad. As a result Archer will be absent for the first match at the venue, the stadium where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.