“It didn’t feel great, leaving Kent,” he says. “I’ve left some of my best mates who you have a great connection with, which is sad and emotional. I had a good chat with Jack Leaning, my team-mate there who had made a move down from Yorkshire. I felt the grass was greener, but I sat on the move, weighing it up for three or four months.
“But when I was injured over the winter, I was thinking ‘why am I moving?’ The reason I’ve moved from my childhood county is to keep. I wasn’t getting that guarantee at Kent, with Sam Billings having a sniff in the Test side. They couldn’t promise me that, and I wanted that guarantee about what my role was. To get injured at that time, I was wondering have I made the right decision?
“I have always said I would give any role a crack. I want as many strings to my bow as possible. I absolutely love keeping. This month I am allowed to get back into keeping, and it’s been tough not doing it this season. But in a way it has been a bit of a blessing because I’ve completely focused on my batting.”
Cox has settled at No 4, replacing Surrey-bound Lawrence at Essex. His average of 34.5 in red-ball cricket for Kent has doubled to 69 for Essex. Kent have been hit hard by his form. In his first meeting with his old county, Cox made 116 not out from 89 balls. In the second, he made 207 from 255.
“Kent had been my club since I was 10, so it did feel brave to accept a new chapter and challenge,” he says. “Moving to a new club, I had to impress and prove to people that I could do this. It was a high-profile signing, I was effectively replacing Dan Lawrence. I had to fill his boots. He would score 1,000 runs a year and had been part of a lot of success across formats. I was excited to accept that challenge and show people I could do it. I didn’t want people to say Dan Lawrence was really missed.”
Hundred return marks ‘roller-coaster’ year
There were two principle reasons for choosing Essex over other suitors. The first was Jason Gallian. The Australian-born former England batsman has been Cox’s coach since he was 13 and arrived at Felsted School, near Braintree, as the golf-mad son of two tennis coaches. Cricket, due to the team element, soon became his focus under Gallian’s stewardship.
“Jason is my coach,” he says. “We will still work together regularly and he knows my batting better than anyone else, so being close to him is great. The other thing about Essex is the club’s record, always fighting for the Championship and the Blast. That’s what I want. I didn’t care that Essex wasn’t a Test-match ground. I looked at the players there.
“I was gutted when Sir Alastair Cook retired because I would have learnt so much from him, but Dean Elgar has come in and I’ve learnt loads off him. I like to remind him he’s about 20 years older than me, and call him Grandpa. He’s definitely one of the reasons my game has gone to another level. He’s helped me learn how to bat long periods. I used to get to 20 and get bored, which was no one’s fault but mine. Now I want to be a guy who can block to save a game if that’s the best result for the team, or go crazy.”
At the end of June, Cox’s first summer was stopped in its tracks when he had his appendix removed during a Championship game against Surrey. He was told he would be out up to three months. Instead, he battled back to fitness in five weeks and made a match-winning 46 not out from 29 balls on Thursday before following it up with an unbeaten 61 from 30 balls on Sunday as Oval Invincibles secured passage to the knockout rounds of the Hundred. Cox is still playing through pain in his abdomen.
With injury, illness, a move and now a Test call-up, Cox describes the last year as a “rollercoaster of emotions”. On the verge of international cricket, the ride is about to get wilder.