Player Biography

Jordan Cox, a Kent Academy graduate and another wicketkeeper-batter in a long line of such specialist players to play for Kent, made his Kent debut against Pakistan in a List A friendly in 2019, scoring 21.

His competitive debut came against Hampshire in the same season in the County Championship, opening the batting in the first innings.

In the 2020 Bob Willis Trophy, Cox scored 238* against Sussex and shared a 407-run partnership with Jack Leaning (220*). This broke Kent’s all time record partnership for any wicket, and set up a dominant victory, as Kent won by an innings and 25-runs.

This was the highest maiden first-class century in the Club’s history, and alongside Leaning, became the first Kent pair to score double hundreds in the same innings since 1937.

He also became the first player born in the new millennium to score a first-class double hundred in England.

In 2021, Cox made headlines around the world after a Player of the Match performance in Kent’s victorious Vitality Blast Final victory on 18 September, the Club’s first trophy in 14 years.

After top-scoring with 58 not out from 28 deliveries, Cox produced one of the finest pieces of outfielding  to dismiss Lewis Gregory. With the ball destined to head for six runs, Cox sprinted to meet the trajectory of the ball, jumped outside of the playing area to palm the ball back into play for Matt Milnes to complete the catch, earning him the moniker of “Air Jordan”.

Overall in that tournament, Cox averaged 52.42 with the bat, scoring 367 runs in 12 innings, finishing five of them not out. This included a smashed 64 runs at the death in another important partnership with Jack Leaning.

At the 2021 Spitfire Kent Cricket Awards, Cox was named as the Club’s first ever Men’s Young Player of the Year, as well as, unsurprisingly, being named Men’s Fielder of the Year.

In 2022, Cox stood out from his peers by combining prolific run-scoring in the LV= Insurance County Championship, in which he made 917 at 45.85, with a flair for the shorter formats. For Kent, his 365 Vitality Blast runs included a career-best 94 against Somerset at Taunton – good enough to get him selected for the England tour of Pakistan.

At the end of that English Summer, he collected one of the game’s most-established awards after being voted NV Play Young Cricketer of the Year by the Cricket Writers’ Club’s membership.

In Winter 2022, he won the first ever SA20 tournament in South Africa, featuring in the final for his Sunrisers Eastern Cape – this was followed by an England Lions one-day debut later that week, as well as his first taste of the Pakistan Super League with Lahore Qalandars.