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The English side's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in February brought them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were compelled to hold the final training session before their third game against the Kiwis indoors. The purpose isn't always clear what role these two-team contests fulfill, what useful lessons could possibly be gained – but on this occasion, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.

The Batter's New Role: Starting Batsman 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 pinnacle of their sport, in his situation it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a frontline hitter, mostly as an opener, Banton now occupies a totally new position, coming in at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the squad and informed me, ‘Your role will be 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 opener, a further portion at third position and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game previously – at fourth place. If the team plan to keep him in this altered role he requires every chance to become accustomed 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

The player noted that “sometimes where it comes off and it appears brilliant and on other occasions where it fails”, and the first two games of the tour in New Zealand have seen one of each. In the opener, he lasted nine balls and made a low score before getting out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he played 12 deliveries, hit runs, and ended the innings not out.

Reflections on Return and Growth

The current series has seen Banton return to the country in which he first played for his country in late 2019. After that, he moved away of the side, had a short comeback in 2022 and then spent more than three years in the sidelines before coming back for the new captain's initial match as skipper. “During the journey, it was weird,” he said. “It was six years ago when I started internationally. Seems a lot has happened in that time. I’ve learned a lot about myself. The few years 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.”

Support from Coaching Staff

Currently, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is thankful to have been offered a return, and also for Brendon McCullum’s skill to make him comfortable while he works out how best to seize the opportunity. “Baz came up to me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Go out and express yourself.’ It’s nice to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I know 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 the end of the world. It’s something so minor but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the approval from the manager and I can step up and perform.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

Following the first two games of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, the visitors complete it on the next day at Eden Park, a dual-purpose sports facility where the straight boundary at 55m is among the shortest in the world. With changeable conditions and an new location they have abandoned their usual practice of announcing their lineup two days in advance while they work out if their ideal XI here will be the same as the one that began the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for ODI Series

On Friday, they move to the coastal town and turn focus to ODIs, with a slightly amended squad: three players are omitted, 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 implies he will follow later, flying with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also preparing for the longer format in Australia but are not in the white-ball squad. As a result Archer will miss the first match at the venue, the ground where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in 2019.