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The English side's preparations for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in the subcontinent in February brought them on midweek to a cool, drizzly New Zealand's largest city, where they were compelled to hold the final practice run before their third game against the Kiwis inside. It is not always obvious what role these bilateral series fulfill, what valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this occasion, for at least one of the players, that is not an issue.

The Batter's Changed Position: Starting Batsman to Middle Order

The cricketer says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the type of statement regularly trotted out even by athletes who have already reached the peak of their game, in his situation it is certainly accurate. After building his name as a top-order batter, mostly as an opener, Banton now occupies a completely unfamiliar role, batting at five or six. “There weren’t really too many discussions,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the squad and told, ‘Your role will be in the middle order now.’”

Prior to returning in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s over 160 senior T20 innings had been as an starting batsman, a further portion at No3 and the remaining handful – but for seven balls at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game eight years ago – at No 4. If England plan to keep him in this altered role he requires every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has figured out one thing: “Batting in the middle order,” he concluded, “is a much tougher than opening.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

Banton said that “there’s going to be times where it comes off and it appears brilliant and other times where it doesn’t”, and the first two games of the winter in New Zealand have seen one of each. In the opener, he faced a few deliveries and made a low score before getting out to long-on; in the next game, he faced 12 deliveries, hit runs, and finished unbeaten.

Reflections on Return and Development

The current series has seen Banton come back to the country in which he first played for his country in late 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the team, made a brief return in 2022 and then passed more than three years in the sidelines before returning for the new captain's initial match as skipper. “On the flight over, it was strange,” he said. “Time has passed when I made my debut. It feels like a lot has occurred in that period. I’ve learned a lot about myself. The period after I was left out from England was a tough time for me. I had a two- to three-year stretch where I was working myself out.”

Support from Coaching Staff

And now, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is thankful to have been given another chance, and also for Brendon McCullum’s skill to put him at ease while he works out how best to seize the opportunity. “Baz approached me before [the recent game] and said, ‘Go out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s just a brief comment someone says, but it provides the backing that if it doesn't work, it’s not the end of the world. It is so small but for me it’s, ‘OK, I’ve got the backing from the head coach and I can go out and do it.’”

Shift in Location and Team Selection

Following the first two games of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with unusually long boundaries, the visitors complete it on Thursday at the Auckland arena, a dual-purpose rugby and cricket ground where the straight boundary at a short distance is among the most compact in the sport. With changeable conditions and an unfamiliar venue they have dropped their usual practice of announcing their lineup ahead of time while they determine if their preferred team here will be the identical as the one that began both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for One-Day Matches

On Friday, they travel to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, with a slightly amended squad: three players drop out, while Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jamie Smith come in. Three of those players landed in the city on the same day but the scheduling of Archer’s Test match buildup implies he will follow later, flying with two fellow bowlers, two seamers who are also preparing for the longer format in the away series but are not in the limited-overs team. As a result Archer will miss the opening game at the venue, the ground where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.