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England's training sessions for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in India in February brought them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly Auckland, where they were compelled to hold the last practice run ahead of their next match against the Kiwis 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 one of the players, that is no concern.

The Batter's New Role: Starting Batsman to Lower Down

The cricketer says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the type of statement often repeated even by players who have already reached the pinnacle of their sport, in his situation it is undeniably true. After building his name as a frontline hitter, mostly as an starting player, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar role, coming in at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the squad and informed me, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Before his recall in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 professional T20 appearances had been as an starting batsman, a further portion at third position and the rest – but for seven balls at No 7 in a domestic T20 game previously – at No 4. If England plan to retain him in this altered role he needs every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has figured out a key point: “Batting in the middle order,” he surmised, “is a lot harder than opening.”

Mixed Results in New Zealand

The player noted that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it looks great and other times where it fails”, and the initial matches of the tour in the host nation have featured one of each. In the first, he faced nine balls and scored a low score before getting out to long-on; in the second, he played a dozen balls, scored 29, and ended the innings unbeaten.

Thoughts on Comeback and Development

This tour has seen Banton come back to the country in which he made his international debut in November 2019. After that, he drifted back out of the team, had a short comeback in 2022 and then spent a long period in the sidelines before coming back for Harry Brook’s first T20 as England captain. “During the journey, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. Seems a lot has happened in that period. I've discovered a lot about me. The period after I got dropped from England was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year period where I was finding my way.”

Support from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been assigned something new 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 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 know it’s just a brief comment from the staff, but it gives me the support 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 approval from the head coach and I can go out and do it.’”

Venue Change and Squad Decisions

Following the initial matches 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 multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at 55m is among the most compact in the sport. With uncertain weather and an new location they have abandoned their recent habit of announcing their lineup two days in advance while they work out if their ideal XI for this match will be the identical as the side that began the earlier fixtures.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they travel to the coastal town and turn focus to ODIs, with a somewhat changed squad: three players drop out, while four others join the squad. Three of those players landed in Auckland on the same day but the scheduling of the bowler's Test match buildup implies he will follow two days later, flying with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also building towards the longer format in Australia but are not in the white-ball squad. As a result he will miss the first match at the venue, the ground where he was subjected to abuse on his only previous appearance, in 2019.