Jordan Cox: I fought back from ‘disgusting’ finger injury to earn England Test call-up

When Jordan Cox joins up with England’s Test team for the first time next week, it is not hard to see him fitting in.

Whether batting or in the field, with or without the gloves, he is a feisty, firecracker of a cricketer. The 23-year-old is unafraid of taking the brave option, as he showed when moving from his home county Kent to their rivals Essex this season, and rarely bites his tongue. Cox is a scratch golfer, too, which just about gives him a full house on the Bazball bingo card.

Cox recounts the call he took from Brendon McCullum, informing him of his call-up for the Sri Lanka series, as he walked through Battersea Park with his girlfriend: “He said, ‘I just want to get you around the group, see what you’re like in the environment because we want aggressive cricketers, which is what you have been doing. Oh, and bring your golf clubs.’”

Cox is not yet capped by England, but he has gone close. In 2022, he was an unused squad member on a T20 tour to Pakistan, and he was on standby for this year’s World Cup. Had he not picked up a “revolting” finger injury playing the Hundred last year, he would almost certainly have played both white-ball formats by now.

For the Sri Lanka series, Cox was called up after Zak Crawley’s own broken finger led to Dan Lawrence’s promotion. A Test bow could now come following the injury to captain Ben Stokes, with white-ball debuts against Australia next month also likely.

“I didn’t quite get a game in Pakistan,” Cox tells Telegraph Sport. “I loved the experience, but I was gutted. This time, I’m not going into the Test squad thinking about getting a game. If that happens, great. But I’m thinking, ‘How much experience [can I get] and how much can I learn from these few weeks, playing with the best players?’

“In Pakistan, I learnt more in a month than I have in the rest of my career so far. It will be unbelievable to watch these guys, like Joe Root, go about their business, even just in the nets. Pakistan made me desperate to be involved with England again.”

Cox admits that he “didn’t expect” his Test call-up “and still doesn’t really believe it”. Before this season, he had only really considered white-ball international cricket, because his red-ball returns at Kent had been modest.

The move to Essex came because of a logjam of glovemen at Kent which also prompted England aspirant Ollie Robinson to leave for Durham before three-cap Test keeper Sam Billings retired from red-ball cricket and stepped down as club captain. Suddenly, Kent had lost three outstanding, homegrown Championship keeper-bats in a couple of years.

For Cox, though, there was a fly in the ointment. That finger injury was so severe that he is only just returning to keeping now, so despite having moved to keep, he has played all year as a specialist batsman.

Cox suffered the injury when hit by Adam Milne and “knew something was up because my whole body went into freeze mode”. When he removed his glove, the top of the ring finger on his right hand was “next door to my pinkie, like I had two pinkies, the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen”. He left the field with the injury covered by a towel, so the cameras could not see the state of his finger.

“It didn’t feel great, leaving Kent,” he says. “I’ve left some of my best mates who you have a great connection with, which is sad and emotional. I had a good chat with Jack Leaning, my team-mate there who had made a move down from Yorkshire. I felt the grass was greener, but I sat on the move, weighing it up for three or four months.

“But when I was injured over the winter, I was thinking ‘why am I moving?’ The reason I’ve moved from my childhood county is to keep. I wasn’t getting that guarantee at Kent, with Sam Billings having a sniff in the Test side. They couldn’t promise me that, and I wanted that guarantee about what my role was. To get injured at that time, I was wondering, ‘have I made the right decision?’

“I have always said I would give any role a crack. I want as many strings to my bow as possible. I absolutely love keeping. This month I am allowed to get back into keeping, and it’s been tough not doing it this season. But in a way it has been a bit of a blessing because I’ve completely focused on my batting.”

Cox has settled at No 4, replacing Surrey-bound Lawrence at Essex. His average of 34.5 in red-ball cricket for Kent has doubled to 69 for Essex. Kent have been hit hard by his form. In his first meeting with his old county, Cox made 116 not out from 89 balls. In the second, he made 207 from 255.

“Kent had been my club since I was 10, so it did feel brave to accept a new chapter and challenge,” he says. “Moving to a new club, I had to impress and prove to people that I could do this. It was a high-profile signing, I was effectively replacing Dan Lawrence. I had to fill his boots. He would score 1,000 runs a year and had been part of a lot of success across formats. I was excited to accept that challenge and show people I could do it. I didn’t want people to say Dan Lawrence was really missed.”

Hundred return marks ‘roller-coaster’ year

There were two principal reasons for choosing Essex over other suitors. The first was Jason Gallian. The Australian-born former England batsman has been Cox’s coach since he was 13 and arrived at Felsted School, near Braintree, as the golf-mad son of two tennis coaches. Cricket, due to the team element, soon became his focus under Gallian’s stewardship.

“Jason is my coach,” he says. “We will still work together regularly and he knows my batting better than anyone else, so being close to him is great. The other thing about Essex is the club’s record, always fighting for the Championship and the Blast. That’s what I want. I didn’t care that Essex wasn’t a Test-match ground. I looked at the players there.

“I was gutted when Sir Alastair Cook retired because I would have learnt so much from him, but Dean Elgar has come in and I’ve learnt loads off him. I like to remind him he’s about 20 years older than me, and call him Grandpa. He’s definitely one of the reasons my game has gone to another level. He’s helped me learn how to bat long periods. I used to get to 20 and get bored, which was no one’s fault but mine. Now I want to be a guy who can block to save a game if that’s the best result for the team, or go crazy.”

At the end of June, Cox’s first summer was stopped in its tracks when he had his appendix removed during a Championship game against Surrey. He was told he would be out for up to three months. Instead, he battled back to fitness in five weeks and made a match-winning 46 not out from 29 balls on Thursday before following it up with an unbeaten 61 from 30 balls on Sunday as Oval Invincibles secured passage to the knockout rounds of the Hundred. Cox is still playing through pain in his abdomen.

With injury, illness, a move and now a Test call-up, Cox describes the last year as a “roller coaster of emotions”. On the verge of international cricket, the ride is about to get wilder.