Last Friday, Alec Stewart showed Gus Atkinson his Surrey County hat on the grass outside the oval Mickey Stewart Pavilion. Atkinson accepted his new hat (along with his new monogram jumper) on his usual ease, but it was a ceremony that Stewart values very much - he didn't have a county cover like cheap trinkets.
The exact criteria for winning the county cover (as opposed to the game cap given when it debuted), floating somewhere in the ether, but the ingredients seem to be the two parts that are established and automatically selected, part long-term service, part is whether Stewart feels the time is correct.
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Most (but not all) of the other 17 first-class county awards are cherished by players for similar reasons, even if the bonuses that used to run with it - pay raises, better contracts, better contracts, a captain's locker room, a special tie, a company's car, fell in the direction.
The red and white roses from Lancashire and Yorkshire sit on either side of the pennines, but these roses are just buds on uncovered players’ hats. Only players who are officially blocked can bloom and make the rose bloom. Lancashire has provided the honor board for players who topped the Old Trafford Pavilion, while blocked Yorkshire players have also received new jumpers and play top on the Rose Rose. At Headingley, overseas professionals will automatically cap.
Glamorgan's uncovered player also wears buds on his hat. The bud radiates into a glorious yellow daffodil on the county hat (along with the player number), and the capped player also wears a horizontal set embroidered with a fully bloomed Duff. In the 1920s, anyone who played more than six games had a cap, which is a points-based system. Now, the players now win the Spurs after they become regulars for the first team or perform well. A demonstration hat will also be given at the end of the seasonal awards dinner.
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In Chelmsford, players wear standard Essex baseball caps until they reach the Magic Circle. The capped players then won the hat with different edges, with badges embroidered on the top, county cap numbers and abbreviations on the sides.
Any Nottinghamshire cricketer who has played Test cricket will get an automatic county cover, so Josh Tongue was immediately capped in his first match this spring, missing his first season at Trent Bridge. Other players must wait until they pass the mysterious threshold before they get the golden sewing granted to them, rather than the white sewing adorned with gold.
When players cover players on Grace Road, the Red Leicestershire Fox turns into gold, and the bear on the Warwickshire hat changes from gold to white, known as the White Bear Hat. The top Warwickshire player also wore another helmet, and there was also the White Bear. The most recent recipient is Liam Norwell, who almost single-handedly held Warwickshire with Hampshire on the final day of the 2022 season and had to retire due to injury. He handed him over lunch in the chair in March.
White bears are often awarded not only for long-term service on site to those who have a significant impact on the community. Hassan Ali was awarded after the club's first tenure as he also made a huge impact from the court - participating in the Ramadan Cricket League and joining Eid. Young Jacob Bethell has three England test covers and his club has not yet been restricted. Players are also provided with a metal plaque with a locker marked with a name and capping date.
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However, Middlesex players don't have such plaques - in fact, there's not even any lockers, as the club doesn't have their own home court. There are other allowances, though: the cap ceremony is usually held at lunch time, outside the Lord’s pavilion, and the script commemorating the occasion is read on the PA and can be heard by everyone. The capped players can also get parking allowances in certain areas of Lord. Compared to baseball-style hats, the county hat is loose blue, and after years of long-term service to players, it can also be awarded the etiquette hats of White Trim and Tassel.
For the capped Somerset-style player, it's a loose hat, which starts in the dark blue, but mysteriously ends the maroon a few days in the sun. Ceremonies are always held on the court, with boards listed players sitting on the walls of the player’s restaurant. Again, without a fixed standard, Azhar Ali was awarded his award for his outstanding behavior on the court.
Hampshire players were awarded a special hat and embroidered with a closure date - but not on the field. The player's name was then added to the board of blockers in the Robin Smith suite and recognized on the main honors board of Arlott Atrium.
A little east along the south coast, Paul Farbrace changed the borders of the Sussex hat. It once awarded rewards with a certain number of running or wickets, but is now a player of a team, although Tymal Mills and Ravi Bopara have been capped in recent years, albeit a white ball expert. Some overseas players earned caps earlier. Steve Smith won his career in three games in 2023 and may replace his loose green, which was attacked by rats. The capped player won the etiquette hat with different colored badges and put on the club's championship on the jumper.
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Derbyshire Graggy also has upper limit numbers and dates stitched on the back. It was a relatively new innovation, and Bob Taylor brought back Bob Taylor after the Ashes tour in 1970-71. The captain player will also receive honorary life membership when leaving the club. After a period of temporary hibernation as Northants descended, the blocker's hat has returned. Former head coach John Sadler stopped them - but this year's Rob Keogh and Ricardo Vasconcelos found a unique hat with gold tubes on their heads.
Traditionally, Kent’s hat was given during Canterbury Cricket Week, and although it looks almost the same as the cap cap, the hat numbers rely on the familiar dancing horses. The last player to be capped by Kent was Ollie Robinson, who moved to Durham, where he was capped immediately - because Durham was one of the outliers.
In the Northeast, every player will be even loan players when his first team debuts, three of whom made their debut last week, when Durham fell down due to an injury crisis, which made them struggle to glue the tape together. The hats were embroidered with their game numbers, so Jake Ball took two games from Somerset to get the No. 206 Durham hat.
The hat has always been almost mysterious symbolism in cricket - just look at the worship of loose green, and the worship across the ocean, reaching the IPL, Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav fight against the orange hat, Josh Hazlewood and Prasidh Krishna in real time against the purple hat.
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