Cricket Cap

Traditional cricket headwear

A Cricket Cap is a type of soft cap, often made from felt that is a traditional headwear for cricketers. Cricket Caps are usually a tight-fitting skullcap, usually made of six or eight sections, with a small crescent shaped brim that points downwards over the brow to provide shade for the eyes. They are often, but not always elasticised at the rear to hold them in place upon the cricker’s head. Some styles of Cricket Cap come in a baggy variety, that is always kept in place by elastic.

The style of cap is also often used as official headwear as part of school uniforms for boys from private schools, particularly throughout the UK and the Commonwealth. Although not common in the modern period, the cricket cap used to be a fashionable form of headwear for people who were casually dressed, and not necessarily worn just for playing the game.

Cricket caps are usually, but not always multi-coloured in the colours of the cricket club or school for which the cap is designed to represent. Sometimes they are particularly elaborately patterned with different sections in different colours, or different coloured rings or hoops around them. At international level, the cap is traditionally made from a single colour. However in recent years in particular, many cricket teams, particularly for limited overs cricket have opted to wear Baseball Caps, rather than traditional Cricket Caps, but the style is still quite popular for first-class cricket teams, as well as Test cricket sides.

The origins of the cricket cap are hard to discern, however prints showing the game being played in the eighteenth century shiow players wearing a style of cap similar to the traditional Cricket Cap.

The most famous Cricket Cap today is the Baggy Green cricket cap of the Australian cricket team which is held in very high esteem. The Baggy Green is treated with a certain degree of mysticism, and cricketers with long careers often opt not to replace the original cap received as they often feel the cap is a lucky talisman. This sometimes results in players who have long careers wearing their cricket caps in quite a tattered state. The Australian side famously always wear their baggy cricket cap, rather than alternatives such as a sun hat for the first session of each match as a symbol of team solidarity.

Cricketers who represent first-class or Test match cricket sides are often presented with a cap ceremonially before their debut.

International Cricket Cap colours

• Australia – Dark green
• England – Navy blue
• India – Navy blue
• New Zealand – Black
• Pakistan – Dark green
• Sri Lanka – Dark blue
• South Africa – Dark green
• West Indies – Maroon
• Zimbabwe – Dark green (first class matches) Scarlet (one day matches)
• Bangladesh – Dark green
• Afghanistan – Dark blue
• Canada – Red
• Ireland – Green
• Kenya – Dark green
• Netherlands – Orange
• Scotland – Blue