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England's preparations for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month brought them on Wednesday to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were forced to conduct the last training session ahead of their third game against New Zealand indoors. It is not always obvious what purpose these two-team contests fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this occasion, for at least a squad member, that is not an issue.

The Batter's Changed Position: Starting Batsman to Lower Down

The cricketer says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the kind of line often repeated even by players who have already reached the pinnacle of their game, in his situation it is undeniably true. After building his name as a top-order batter, primarily as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new role, batting at five or six. “There weren’t really too many discussions,” he said. “I just got brought me back into the squad and told, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Before his recall in June, the vast majority of Banton’s 162 professional T20 appearances had been as an opener, another 8% at No3 and the rest – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game previously – at fourth place. If the team intend to retain him in this new position he needs every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has figured out a key point: “Playing down the order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than starting the innings.”

Mixed Results in New Zealand

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it appears brilliant and other times where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the tour in New Zealand have seen both outcomes. In the opener, he lasted nine balls and made a low score before holing out to the deep fielder; in the next game, he faced a dozen balls, hit runs, and ended the innings unbeaten.

Thoughts on Return and Development

This tour has seen Banton come back to the nation in which he made his international debut in late 2019. After that, he moved away of the side, had a short comeback in recently and then spent a long period in the sidelines before returning for the new captain's first T20 as skipper. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. Seems a lot has occurred in that period. I’ve learned a lot about me. The few years after I was left out from England was a difficult phase for me. I had a couple of years stretch where I was finding my way.”

Backing from Team Management

And now, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is grateful to have been offered a return, and also for Brendon McCullum’s ability to make him comfortable while he works out how best to seize the opportunity. “The coach came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and express yourself.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment from the staff, but it gives me the support that if it doesn't work, it’s not a disaster. 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 Squad Decisions

Following the first two games of the contest at the South Island ground, a stadium with unusually long boundaries, the visitors finish the series on Thursday at Eden Park, a multi-use rugby and cricket ground where the field edge at a short distance is among the shortest in the world. With changeable conditions and an unfamiliar venue they have abandoned their recent habit of announcing their lineup ahead of time while they work out if their preferred team here will be the identical as the side that started both previous games.

Upcoming Changes for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they move to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to one-day internationals, with a somewhat changed squad: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt drop out, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith join the squad. Most newcomers arrived in the city on Wednesday but the timing of the bowler's Test match buildup means he will follow later, flying with two fellow bowlers, fast bowlers who are also building towards the Tests in the away series but are not in the limited-overs team. As a result he will be absent for the opening game at the venue, the ground where he was subjected to abuse on his sole prior visit, in a few years back.