Chris Jordan is one of the gun death bowler for England in the limited overs format and has carved a niche for himself through his deadly toe-crushing yorkers and the ability to hit few lusty blows down the order.
Christopher James Jordan is an English cricketer, born on the 4th of October, 1988. Jordan is a right-arm fast bowler and a handy tail-ender. He hails from Barbados where he spent most of his early days, before he moved to England. The pacer was qualified to play for England and West Indies but chose to play for the former.
Before bursting out in the international stage, Jordan p
layed for Surrey Cricket Club in the county championship. Chris Jordan burst on the county circuit as an 18-year-old in 2007 when he picked up 20 wickets in five county championship games for Surrey and also won the Most Promising Young Player Award for Surrey in 2007.
The fast bowler missed the entire 2010 County season due to a stress fracture. On his return in 2011, he just picked up 11 wickets. After being released by Surrey in 2012, Jordan went back to his home country where his talents became evident again.
A move to Sussex in 2013 saw his true potential come to the fore, and England soon took notice. Eligible for England through his grandmother, he was selected for the England Lions.
Known to be a quality death bowler and for some hard-hitting shots lower down the order Jordan entered the Indian Premier League as a replacement for Mitchell Starc for Royal Challengers Bangalore. He picked up 11 wickets in 9 games with best figures of 4/11. He was released by the RCB after the 2017 season.
He was bought by Sunrisers Hyderabad for his base price of Rs 1 crore at the auction ahead of the 2018 IPL season. In the 2020 IPL auctions, Chris Jordan was snaffled up by Kings XI Punjab for Rs. 3 crores. His base price was only Rs. 75 lakhs.
Chris Jordan made his ODI debut against Australia on the 16th of September, 2013. He picked up 3 wickets and scored 15 runs but ended up on the losing side. He was later selected to be part of the England line-up for their tour to Australia and West Indies in 2014. After some considerable good performances, Jordan was selected for the 2015 World Cup but only played twice before England unceremoniously exited from the tournament.
However, Jordan was one of the few English cricketers that survived the cull following that disastrous tournament.
Jordan remained a lock in England T20I team, and his performance in a series in the Caribbean immediately before the 2019 World Cup nearly brought him in from the wilderness. But his close friend Jofra Archer was named in the eventual squad ahead of him, and he continued to forge a path on the global franchise circuit.
In his T20 debut against Australia in Sydney in February 2014, Jordan could pick up just one wicket and scored unbeaten 10 runs as England lost the match by 84 runs. In the third T20I against West Indies in early 2014, he picked up three wickets and scored a quickfire 26 which made him a huge prospect for the test squad. He rose to prominence in the series against Sri Lanka in 2014 where he picked 12 wickets. Jordan on the back of such impressive performances was selected for the 2016 T20 WC. In the final, Chris Jordan bowled the penultimate over and gave away only 8 runs but Ben Stokes in the final over went to cleaners after Carlos Braithwaite exploded.
Chris Jordan's Test debut came against Sri Lanka at Lord’s in June 2014, where he picked up three and two wickets in the first and the second innings respectively. His ODI performances earned him a place in the test squad. In late 2014, Jordan had a good test series against India where he picked 10 wickets and England took the series 3-1.
Jordan was also selected for the 2015 West Indies Test tour but he could only muster 6 scalps across the three Test matches. He has so far played 8 Tests and taken 21 wickets.
Chris Jordan was born on 4 October 1988 in ChristChurch, Barbados to Robert Jordan and Rosita Jordan. He has a sister named Keisha Boyce. Interestingly, Rihanna was a classmate of Jordan at Combermere School in Bridgetown, Barbados.
