{"id":657518,"date":"2026-06-25T13:02:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T13:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/657518\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T13:02:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T13:02:18","slug":"jordan-cox-ex-test-seamer-lever-urges-england-to-use-essex-batter-differently-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/657518\/","title":{"rendered":"Jordan Cox: Ex-Test seamer Lever urges England to use Essex batter differently"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seam bowler Sam Cook is another Essex player with one Test cap, and although out of action at the moment with a wrist fracture<\/a>, Lever believes he will eventually be given another chance after playing against Zimbabwe in May 2025.<\/p>\n

Lever won 21 Test caps and took 1,722 first-class wickets during his career and was surprised Cook was overlooked for England’s tour to Australia last winter.<\/p>\n

“He’s quick enough and hits those lengths. I know they had Mitchell Starc but the others who got all the wickets were a Sam Cook type of bowler,” he said. <\/p>\n

“I think he’s certainly one for the future.”<\/p>\n

Essex continue their T20 Blast campaign away to Northamptonshire Steelbacks on Friday, following a three-day defeat by Nottinghamshire in the Championship.<\/p>\n

Lever said they remain a club that punch above their weight despite being a club without the extra income from being a Test match ground and must continue to produce their own local players.<\/p>\n

“This is why Essex have been so successful, that has been our mantra all the way through,” he said. <\/p>\n

“We produce homegrown players – we use Suffolk and surrounding minor counties to help, and they’ve been brilliant – and it really is the way forward.<\/p>\n

“We need overseas players, of course we do, but it’s becoming increasingly hard to get them for a whole summer and that fragments things.”<\/p>\n

John Lever was speaking to BBC Essex sports editor Victoria Polley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seam bowler Sam Cook is another Essex player with one Test cap, and although out of action at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-657518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}