England vs New Zealand: Jacob Bethell named in Test squad as Jamie Smith misses series; Jordan Cox to keep wicket

England vs New Zealand: Jacob Bethell named in Test squad as Jamie Smith misses series; Jordan Cox to keep wicket

England have named Warwickshire all-rounder Jacob Bethell in their squad for the three-Test tour of New Zealand with Jamie Smith to miss the trip due to the birth of his first child.

Jordan Cox will keep wicket in Smith's absence with Bethell - who, like Cox, is uncapped at Test level - in a 16-player group as batting cover for a series that begins in Christchurch on November 28.

Vice-captain Ollie Pope retains his place despite averaging 11 and recording a top score of 29 in the 2-1 series defeat in Pakistan.

The first New Zealand Test is followed by games in Wellington from December 6 and Hamilton from December 14.

Barbados-born Bethell, 21, averages only 25.44 across 20 first-class matches and is yet to score a century - he has a best of 93 against Nottinghamshire early in the 2024 season.

But he made some impressive middle-order cameos with the bat against Australia in ODI and T20I cricket in September in what was his first taste of the international game, while he hit a 15-ball Vitality Blast fifty for Birmingham Bears this summer.

Bethell also bowls left arm-spin - he struck four times across the five ODIs versus Australia - although that has only yielded seven wickets at an average of 96.14 in red-ball cricket.

Like Leicestershire left-arm seamer Josh Hull and Somerset off-spinner Shoaib Bashir, both of whom made their Test debuts this year, Bethell has been picked on potential as opposed to strong first-class statistics.

Bethell, Cox and and leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed - the latter retained in the squad as one of three spinners, alongside Bashir and Jack Leach - will link up with the Test group in New Zealand at the end of their white-ball commitments in West Indies.

Cox, who was England's spare batter in Pakistan, scored 918 runs at an average of 65.57 for Essex in County Championship Division One this summer, hitting four hundreds.

He has only kept wicket in six first-class games and not worn the gloves in red-ball cricket since June 2023 due to a gruesome finger injury sustained later that summer.

Cox said: "Keeping for me is something that I absolutely loved. I've kept since the age of 11 and then obviously I got that pretty nasty injury in The Hundred, which made me stop keeping for a year.

"Now it's about building up. I've probably had three, four months of keeping again, so not long. But as people say, it's like riding a bike.

"If you get into the team and you're a good batter, if you can keep that's awesome and it's just another string to your bow. I will try my best to cement some sort of role in that team."

Cox's selection as wicketkeeper perhaps indicates that Jonny Bairstow and Ben Foakes, both dropped after last winter's 4-1 defeat in India, may have played their last Tests.

Pope, meanwhile, was firmly backed by McCullum after the loss in Pakistan.

"We know when Popey gets in he gets big scores. It is not an easy place to bat at No 3," said McCullum, who will also become England white-ball head coach at the start of 2025.

"I know Popey will be disappointed with the volume of runs he has got. I expect him to bounce back in New Zealand and we will make sure he has the support around him to do so."

Asked whether he could potentially take Pope's place in the England side in the long term, Cox said: "It's professional sport, you never know what will happen.

"Let's say Popey goes and scores three hundreds, let's say I score a hundred and win the Test match, what happens there?"

New Zealand have just become the first away team to win a Test series in India since 2012, while they held England to a 1-1 draw when they hosted Ben Stokes' side in early 2023.

England have not won a Test series in New Zealand since 2008.