Essex's Cox unlikely to keep wicket in early season

Jordan Cox made his debut for Essex last season having signed from Kent

England's Jordan Cox is unlikely to keep wicket for Essex in the early months of the season following a broken thumb.

Cox was three days away from making his Test debut in New Zealand last November when he suffered the injury in a net session.

And his hopes of returning to the England squad will now depend on the weight of runs he can produce in the early rounds of this year's County Championship.

"I was absolutely devastated, it was probably the toughest moment I've had in my career to date," Cox told BBC Essex Sport.

"Two months sitting on Bondi [Beach] was not what I wanted but it was probably the only thing that kept me sane - if I'd come back here with the weather being as bad it was, I don't know what would have happened," he joked.

The fracture was not straightforward but a specialist decided that an operation was not the best course of action.

"I came to Essex to have more opportunity to keep more and I didn't keep at all (last year) because my finger wasn't great, and now we're back to square one, I can't keep again," added Cox.

"It's one of those where if we desperately need someone I probably can do it but the specialist has said it's probably not a great idea.

"The break in my thumb was a three-way break. I was supposed to have surgery but apparently it was going to be quite risky, I might not have been able to bend my thumb so we ended up leaving it."

The 24-year-old hopes to be able to keep wicket in white-ball cricket later in the summer, but added: "Red-ball cricket, pretty much every ball is coming to you, and I don't know how long it [thumb] would last.

"If Essex desperately needed me to do it, I'd do it but it wouldn't be something I'd be looking to do at least the first two, three months of the season."

Cox moved from Kent before the start of the 2024 season and scored 918 runs in 11 games in the County Championship, with four centuries, including a highest score of 207.

It was a total which undoubtedly would have been significantly higher but for a mid-season appendix operation which kept him out until The Hundred got under way in August.

"Sport is tough, there's so many highs, but there's also so many lows," he added.

"It's just about getting back on that horse, believing in yourself and believing that the coaching staff are going to look after you - and at Essex they've been awesome, they've been absolutely phenomenal."

Cox has played five white-ball games for England but a highest score of 17 in both 50-over and T20 formats is no reflection of his ability.

For now, though, he is concentrating on helping Essex make a positive start to the summer, which begins for them on 4 April with a home game against reigning champions and title favourites Surrey.

"We've got the squad to do it. Essex always fight for championships. If we don't get first place we're going to be pretty annoyed," he said.

"I want to set myself high standards, like Dean Elgar - he came over and scored a thousand runs (last year), that's exactly what I wanted to do. I'll be looking to score a thousand runs for the year, that's always my goal - start the year off well and hopefully I can do that."