🔗 Share this article

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 Auckland, where they were forced to hold the final practice run before their third game against New Zealand inside. It is not always obvious what purpose these two-team contests serve, what valuable insights could possibly be learned – but on this instance, for at least one of the players, that is not an issue.

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

The cricketer says he is “continuing to develop”, and if it is the type of statement often repeated even by players who have already reached the peak of their sport, in his case it is certainly accurate. After forging his reputation as a top-order batter, primarily as an starting player, Banton suddenly finds himself a totally new role, batting at the middle order. “There weren’t really too many conversations,” he said. “They simply brought me back into the team and told, ‘You’re going to bat in the lower batting lineup now.’”

Prior to returning in the summer, the vast majority of Banton’s 162 senior T20 innings had been as an opener, another 8% at third position and the remaining handful – but for a brief stint at seventh spot in a domestic T20 game previously – at fourth place. If the team plan to retain him in this new position he requires every chance to become accustomed to it, and he has figured out a key point: “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 comes off and it looks great and other times where it fails”, and the initial matches of the tour in the host nation have seen one of each. In the first, he faced a few deliveries and made nine runs before holing out to the deep fielder; in the second, he played a dozen balls, scored 29, and ended the innings not out.

Thoughts on Return and Development

This tour has witnessed Banton come back to the nation in which he first played for his country in late 2019. Since then, he drifted back out of the team, had a short comeback in 2022 and then passed more than three years in the wilderness before coming back for the new captain's initial match as England captain. “On the flight over, it was weird,” he said. “Time has passed when I started internationally. Seems a lot has happened in that time. I've discovered a lot about me. The period after I got dropped from the national team was a tough time for me. I had a couple of years period where I was finding my way.”

Support from Team Management

And now, he has been given something new to tackle. Banton is grateful to have been given another chance, and also for the coach's skill to put him at ease while he figures out how best to grasp it. “The coach came up to me before [Monday’s second T20] and said, ‘Go out and play your natural game.’ It’s nice to have that freedom,” Banton said. “I realize it’s only a small thing 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’s something so minor but for me it’s, ‘Alright, I’ve got the approval from the head coach and I can step up and perform.’”

Venue Change and Squad Decisions

Following the initial matches of the series at the South Island ground, a stadium with expansive playing area, the visitors finish the series on the next day at the Auckland arena, a dual-purpose rugby and cricket ground where the field edge at a short distance is among the shortest in the world. With changeable conditions and an new location they have dropped their usual practice of announcing their team ahead of time while they determine if their preferred team for this match will be the same as the side that started both previous games.

Squad Adjustments for ODI Series

On Friday, they move to Mount Maunganui and shift attention to ODIs, with a somewhat changed team: Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley and Phil Salt are omitted, while four others come in. Most newcomers landed in Auckland on the same day but the timing of the bowler's Ashes preparations means he will arrive two days later, travelling with Mark Wood and Josh Tongue, two seamers who are also preparing for the Tests in Australia but are excluded from the limited-overs team. Consequently he will be absent for the first match at the venue, the stadium where he was racially abused on his only previous appearance, in 2019.