Jordan Cox is set to make his Test debut as England's wicketkeeper during their upcoming tour to New Zealand, with Jamie Smith due to miss part of the series on paternity leave. Cox, who turns 24 on Monday, has been England's spare batter for their last five Tests and will get his chance to impress in December.
Smith and his partner are expecting their first child in mid-December, with the birth likely to clash with either 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 the Daily Mail recently. "It will be a memory that I cherish more than any in cricket anyway, so if I lost my place because of it, so be it."
Cox made his international debut in England's T20I series against Australia last month, and will soon be added to the squads for their upcoming white-ball tour to the Caribbean. He was unable to keep wicket for Essex this summer after a horrific broken finger sustained in the Hundred last year, but has been working on his keeping with 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 stage, it looks like Jamie will probably play the first [Test in New Zealand] and may miss the next two. We're not totally sure - it's up to Mother Nature a little - but we know we've got Jordan Cox in the squad here."
It will not concern England that Cox has hardly kept in the last year, as shown with 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 glovework he describes as "solid" - fares at Test level.
Cox is a self-assured character who, by his own admission, would get "bored" once he had reached 40 while playing for a struggling Kent side last year. He moved to Essex after feeling like he "needed a change" that would help him "reignite" his passion for four-day cricket, and scored four hundreds while averaging 65.57 in his first County Championship season for them.
He filled the No. 4 spot at Essex vacated by Dan Lawrence's move to Surrey, and Lawrence's own recent experiences highlight the problem with being England's spare batter. After making a decent impression in the Caribbean in March 2022, Lawrence spent more than two years waiting for another opportunity in the middle order, only to be thrown in as an opener with predictable results. Now, he has slipped below Cox in the pecking order.
Unless England lose a batter to injury or illness before Thursday's third Test in Rawalpindi, Cox will be added to their white-ball squads and travel to the Caribbean, most likely along with Rehan Ahmed. Marcus Trescothick, who is interim white-ball coach for the three ODIs and five T20Is against West Indies, has already left Pakistan ahead of that tour.
Cox should make his ODI debut in that series and will have a chance to stake a late claim for a spot in England's squad for next year's Champions Trophy. But it is the prospect of a Test debut later this year that could satisfy his restlessness, and provide vindication for the air miles he will rack up in the first half of the English winter.
"He's annoyingly good at everything he does - particularly on the golf course," McCullum said. "He's one of those guys that you look at and say he's got a high ceiling in terms of talent, particularly with bat in hand. There's a fair chance that he'll get the opportunity in New Zealand, if Jamie does return home, to bat down the order and take the gloves."