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Understudy Jordan Cox awaits chance for centre stage

Jordan Cox at training in Antigua ahead of the West Indies ODI series Getty Images

He's a confident lad is Jordan Cox.

During training he wears his cap backwards in the way only the cool kids can. And then you remember he isn't just the kid who's best at school anymore but he's playing cricket for England. And then you remember that, when he's not playing cricket for England, he's on the golf course playing off his better-than-scratch handicap. If anything, it makes you sick.

Cox is on the cusp of becoming England's master-of-all-trades. Although he only has two T20I appearances to his name, he will be a lock for the upcoming ODI series as a specialist batter and he is in line to keep wicket in all three Tests against New Zealand.

England like Cox. He's multi-skilled, brash, hits bombs, hits fairways and probably sinks pints too. The business world would call his elevation to the national set-up a successful culture hire.

"It can come across so rude or arrogant," Cox said of his attitude towards cricket. "Or that I don't really care. But I do care. I really do. I care about doing well. I care about winning.

"Cricket is such an up-and-down sport…I'm just trying to stay as level-headed as I can.

"When I was younger, I didn't care. I was having fun with friends. I did well then, so why would I change? Now I'm having fun with new friends."

Those new friends are the likes of Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Harry Brook and Brendon McCullum, for whom he has been carrying drinks for for the best part of three months.

Cox was first called up to the Test squad as batting cover for the Sri Lanka series, before playing in both the completed T20Is against Australia, being unused across the ODIs and then unused in the Tests against Pakistan.

Cox, along with Rehan Ahmed, will be one of only two players to be on all three tours of Pakistan, West Indies and New Zealand.

"I was speaking to my old man on the golf course the other day," Cox said. "And he asked me how I was feeling. 'Pretty fresh,' I said. The thing is you have to bide your time.

"I think being 24 I can juggle that. I think if selected to play all three [formats] I'll never say no."

In his own words, just being around the international set-up breeds rapid learning. Two years ago he was part of the squad that travelled to Pakistan for a seven-match T20I series, a month which, despite not playing, he says taught him "more than my five years at Kent".

"I'm learning really quickly," he added.

Part of what he'll have to learn again is keeping. A gruesome finger injury in the 2023 Hundred has meant it is 15 months since Cox last kept wicket and, with Phil Salt set to have the gloves during this ODI series, Cox will be going in cold at Christchurch in four weeks' time.

"Keeping is something that I absolutely loved," Cox said. "I've kept since the age of 11 and then obviously had that nasty injury so now it's about building up.

"I've probably been three, four months of keeping again, so not long. But you know, as people say it's like riding a bike."

Cox spent much of his time in Pakistan practicing keeping with McCullum, but he also credits the absence of the gloves for contributing to his finest year with the bat as a professional. Across the 2024 season with Essex, he made four centuries and averaged 65.57.

"It's made me cherish my wicket a lot more because you've only got one skill to change a game," he said.

"Because of my finger, I can't stand at slip so I can't take good catches and change a game like that so I'm standing at mid-off falling asleep!"

The conundrum with Cox is whether he's about to take over English cricket or if this is a gap-year fling.

Currently, he is not in any of the three formats' first-choice XIs, but he is in all three formats' first-choice squads. His opportunity in New Zealand is in effect a three-match loan deal. Look after the gloves for Jamie, who's absent on paternity leave, and then wait your turn.

But with Ollie Pope under pressure, that equation is no longer so simple. Cox is naturally a top-order batter and an avalanche of runs could force England into a change.

"It's professional sport, you never know what will happen," Cox said. "Let's say Popey goes and scores three hundreds, let's say I score a hundred and win the Test match, what happens there? The media are always going to say different things but everyone's trying to make a living and have fun.

"Obviously, I don't want someone to get injured, for me to get in their spot. But I've got an opportunity in New Zealand to put a stamp on potentially keeping in all three Test matches and scoring some runs."

And if anyone's to bet on Cox to do exactly that, it will be the man himself.