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England's training sessions for a hot, dry T20 World Cup in India in February brought them on Wednesday to a chilly, rainy New Zealand's largest city, where they were compelled to conduct the final practice run before their next match against New Zealand inside. The purpose isn't always clear what purpose these two-team contests fulfill, what useful lessons 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 “continuing to develop”, and if it is the kind of line regularly trotted out even by athletes who have long since scaled the peak of their game, in his situation it is certainly accurate. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, mostly as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a completely unfamiliar position, coming in at the middle order. “I didn't have too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and told, ‘Your role will be 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, another 8% at No3 and the rest – but for a brief stint at seventh spot in a T20 Blast game previously – at fourth place. If England plan to retain him in this altered role he requires every possible opportunity to get used to it, and he has already worked out a key point: “Playing down the order,” he surmised, “is a much tougher than starting the innings.”

Varied Performances in New Zealand

The player noted that “there’s going to be times where it comes off and it appears brilliant and other times where it fails”, and the first two games of the tour in the host nation have featured both outcomes. In the first, he lasted nine balls and made nine runs before holing out to long-on; in the next game, he faced a dozen balls, scored 29, and ended the innings not out.

Reflections on Comeback and Growth

This tour has witnessed Banton come back to the country in which he first played for his country in November 2019. Since then, he moved away of the team, had a short comeback in recently and then passed a long period in the wilderness before coming back for Harry Brook’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 happened in that period. 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.”

Backing from Team Management

Currently, he has been assigned a fresh challenge to work out. Banton is grateful to have been offered a return, and also for the coach's skill to make him comfortable while he figures out how best to grasp it. “The coach came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Head out and play your natural game.’ It's reassuring to have that liberty,” Banton said. “I realize it’s only a small thing someone says, but it provides the support that if it doesn't work, it’s not the end of the world. It is so minor but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the backing from the head coach and I can go out and perform.’”

Shift in Location and Squad Decisions

Following the initial matches of the contest at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, a venue with unusually long boundaries, England complete it on Thursday at the Auckland arena, a multi-use sports facility where the straight boundary at 55m is among the shortest in the sport. With uncertain weather and an unfamiliar venue they have dropped their recent habit 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.

Upcoming Changes for ODI Series

Next, they move to Mount Maunganui and turn focus to ODIs, 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 the same day but the timing of the bowler's Ashes preparations implies he will follow later, travelling with two fellow bowlers, fast bowlers who are also building towards the longer format in Australia but are not in the limited-overs team. Consequently he will be absent for the opening game at Bay Oval, the ground where he was racially abused on his sole prior visit, in a few years back.