Jordan Cox is the unluckiest active English cricketer not to own a Test cap.
In November 2024, after an excellent year across all formats and a Test tour of Pakistan carrying drinks, he was days from a debut as a wicketkeeper-batsman when he broke his thumb in New Zealand.
With Jamie Smith on paternity leave, Ollie Pope took the gloves and Jacob Bethell was handed an unlikely opportunity at No 3, which helped him skip ahead of Cox in the queue.
Six months later, with Bethell at the Indian Premier League (IPL), Cox was in the squad again, for the Test against Zimbabwe, but injured his side playing in the County Championship. How’s your luck?
Fast-forward to the present, and an early-summer dash to the Test squad with spots up for grabs and promises of a strengthened relationship with county cricket. As Smith stabilises his career at Surrey after a poor Ashes and James Rew surges with buoyant Somerset, Cox could fall into an IPL-shaped crack and become England’s forgotten man.
At December’s auction, where Smith was overlooked, Cox was picked up by the champions, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, for around £75,000. That he fulfilled that contract was a no-brainer. First, pulling out would have earned him a long ban, like Harry Brook and Ben Duckett now have.
The difference between Cox and those players is that, as he is not first-choice in any format, he narrowly missed out on the lavish security of an England central contract this year. Careers are short and unpredictable, and money matters. His IPL deal this time was modest, but who knows what it could have led to.
Like many English players before him, Bethell included, he is warming the bench and waiting for an opportunity. He may yet play, and he has been listed as an impact sub in recent games. The team are performing well, which perhaps makes top-order turnover less likely.
“An incredible learning experience, enjoying every minute,” he posted on social media last week. The chance to work with the likes of coach Andy Flower and Virat Kohli will do him no harm, so too the opportunity to soak up the immense atmosphere and expectation that comes with the IPL.
But then there is his place in England’s pecking order. Smith (397 runs in two matches) and Rew (379 in three) top the championship run-scoring charts. At 25, Cox is a few months younger than Smith and three years older than Rew, but he fits squarely into the same category as an excellent middle-order batsman who also keeps wicket to a decent standard.
A move to the top three would not be out of the question, but like Smith and Rew, he would prefer to bat No 4 or lower, and may be a square peg in a round hole as an opener. It should not be forgotten how good Cox’s record is. He averages 41.8 overall in first-class cricket, but 62.7 from 19 matches (with seven hundreds) since trading Kent, where he was born, for Essex, where he was schooled, two years ago.
How Essex would have loved a batsman of Cox’s quality as they floundered in a chase of 202 against Warwickshire on Monday, falling to their second defeat in three matches. Their cause has been made harder by the loss of Tom Westley to injury and Wiaan Mulder for personal reasons in the last fortnight. They face a daunting trip to the Oval later this week.
All this comes at a curious time for two reasons. One is the renewed relationship between England and the county game, which Cox could not have predicted when entering the auction, given England’s rhetoric in recent years. He has been well clear of Rew in England’s pecking order until now. But it might be difficult to justify that remaining the same if the current trend – Cox twiddling thumbs, Rew scoring runs – continues until the Test squad is named next month.
The other is England’s ever-evolving relationship with the IPL. Kevin Pietersen has spoken recently about fighting early English scepticism around the tournament and paving the way for the likes of Jos Buttler to become IPL regulars. Over the last decade, England has embraced the tournament, but that has changed a little lately.
Only four Englishmen – Buttler, Phil Salt, Jofra Archer and Jamie Overton – have been IPL regulars this year. Bethell was unable to usurp Pope as Test No 3 after going to the tournament last year, missing early-season championship action.
A large bank of crucial England players, Duckett most recently, have cooled their relationship with the IPL to prioritise national duty. This is partly because of big central contracts, but also because of the flow of Indian money to other leagues. White-ball captain Brook, for instance, can forego the IPL because his central contract is worth more than £1m, and he has a deal worth more than £470,000 with Sunrisers Leeds in the Hundred.
Cox, the outstanding player in the Hundred to date, has done well out of other leagues too, with a £300,000 deal with Welsh Fire, as well as cushy gigs with Dubai Capitals in the ILT20 and Pretoria Capitals in the SA20. But he did give up franchise opportunities to be with England Lions for the Ashes warm-up at Perth’s Lilac Hill in November, and then captained the Lions in the UAE earlier this year, when Ben Stokes was among the coaching staff.
At the IPL, Cox can do some red-ball preparation alongside Bethell, and there are championship games during the New Zealand Test series for him to get stuck into and restate his case. It is possible that all three of Rew (opening), Smith (keeping) and Cox (spare) could make the squad. Cox will hope he has enough credit in the bank to turn his luck, but for now he is out of sight and out of mind.