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England's preparations for a warm, arid T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in the coming month brought them on Wednesday to a chilly, rainy Auckland, where they were forced to conduct the final training session before their next match against the Kiwis inside. The purpose isn't always clear what role these bilateral series fulfill, what useful lessons could possibly be learned – but on this occasion, for at least a squad member, that is no concern.

The Batter's Changed Position: From Opener to Middle Order

The cricketer says he is “still learning now”, and if it is the type of statement regularly trotted out even by players who have already reached the peak of their game, in his case it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a top-order batter, primarily as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new role, coming in at the middle order. “I didn't have too many discussions,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the squad and told, ‘You’re going to bat in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Before his recall in June, 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 T20 Blast game previously – at fourth place. If England intend to keep him in this new position he needs every possible opportunity to become accustomed to it, and he has figured out one thing: “Playing down the order,” he concluded, “is a lot harder than starting the innings.”

Mixed Results in New Zealand

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it works well and it looks great and other times where it doesn’t”, and the initial matches of the winter in New Zealand have seen one of each. In the first, he lasted a few deliveries and scored nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the second, he faced a dozen balls, hit runs, and ended the innings unbeaten.

Reflections on Comeback and Development

The current series has witnessed Banton return to the country in which he made his international debut in late 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the side, had a short comeback in 2022 and then passed a long period in the sidelines before returning for the new captain's first T20 as England captain. “On the flight over, 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 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 working myself out.”

Support from Team Management

And now, he has been assigned something new to tackle. Banton is thankful to have been given another chance, and also for Brendon McCullum’s skill to make him comfortable while he figures out how best to grasp it. “Baz came up to me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Head out and express yourself.’ It’s nice to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I know it’s only a small thing someone says, but it gives me the support that if it doesn't work, it’s not a disaster. It’s something so small but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the manager and I can step up and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

After playing the first two games of the contest at the South Island ground, a venue with unusually long boundaries, England 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 world. With changeable conditions and an new location they have abandoned their usual practice 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 travel to the coastal town and turn focus to ODIs, with a slightly amended squad: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt are omitted, while four others come in. Three of those players landed in Auckland on the same day but the scheduling of the bowler's Test match buildup means he will arrive later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also building towards the longer format in Australia but are not in the white-ball squad. Consequently he will be absent for the first match at Bay Oval, the ground where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.