Jordan Cox will make his Test debut as England’s goalkeeper during their upcoming tour to New Zealand, and Jamie Smith will miss part of the series on paternity leave. Cox, who turns 24 on Monday, has been England’s stand-in batsman for their last five Tests and will have a chance to impress in December.
Smith and his partner are expecting their first child in mid-December, with the birth likely to coincide with England’s second or third Test in New Zealand. “Being at the birth of my son is not something I want to miss,” he told daily mail recently. “Anyway, it will be a memory I will cherish more than any other in cricket, so if I lost my place because of that, so be it.”
Cox made his international debut in England’s T20I series against Australia last month and will soon join the teams for their upcoming white-ball tour of the Caribbean. He was unable to keep the Essex wicket this summer after a horrific finger fracture he suffered in the Hundred last year, but has been working to keep it under Brendon McCullum in Pakistan.
“It’s life, right?” McCullum said of Smith’s absence. “People have kids and we wish them all the best, to be there and support their partners. At this point, it looks like Jamie will probably play the first role.” [Test in New Zealand] and you may miss the next two. “We’re not totally sure, it depends a little bit on Mother Nature, but we know we have Jordan Cox on the team.”
England will not be concerned that Cox has barely retained over the last year, as demonstrated by Smith’s own selection earlier this summer despite being second choice behind Ben Foakes at Surrey. McCullum believes, from his own experience, that New Zealand is “a comfortable place” to keep wicket, and wants to see how Cox, whose glove work he describes as “solid”, fares at Test level.
Cox is a confident character who, by his own admission, became “bored” once he turned 40 while playing for a struggling Kent team last year. He moved to Essex after feeling he “needed a change” that would help him “rekindle” his passion for four-day cricket, and scored four hundreds at an average of 65.57 in his first County Championship season for them.
He filled the number 4 spot at Essex which was left vacant by Dan Lawrence’s move to Surrey, and Lawrence’s own recent experiences highlight the problem of being England’s stand-in batsman. After making a good impression in the Caribbean in March 2022, Lawrence spent more than two years waiting for another opportunity in the middle order, only to be released as an opener with predictable results. Now, he has fallen below Cox in the pecking order.
Unless England lose a batsman to injury or illness before Thursday’s third Test in Rawalpindi, Cox will add to their white-ball teams and travel to the Caribbean, most likely along with Rehan Ahmed. Marcus Trescothick, interim white-ball coach for the three ODIs and five T20Is against the West Indies, had already left Pakistan before that tour.
Cox should make his ODI debut in that series and will have the chance to claim a late place in the England squad for next year’s Champions Trophy. But it is the prospect of a Test debut later this year that could satisfy his trepidation and justify the air miles he will rack up in the first half of the English winter.
“He’s annoyingly good at everything he does, especially on the golf course,” McCullum said. “He’s one of those guys who you look at and say has a high ceiling in terms of talent, particularly with the bat in his hand. There’s a big chance he’ll get the opportunity in New Zealand, if Jamie comes home, to Override the order and take the gloves.”
