This week we're talking about Peter Siddle bowling in a woolly hat
We're going to be upfront about this: today's post is largely a means of trying to exploit our readership in a most-likely forlorn bid to remember a very trivial thing which we cannot currently remember. But let's have a few words about Matt Renshaw before we get into that.
This was going to be another Matt Renshaw piece. Last week Renshaw made 101 out of Somerset's total of 202 and we were very much impressed. This week he made 112 out of 216, which is basically the same thing.
One thing we greatly enjoy in county cricket is when one player is very dominant. This scenario allows us to ignore everything else that is going on and just keep writing about the same player. This makes life an awful lot easier because the County Championship is big and sprawling and our attention is not.
The downside is that eventually we run out of things to say. (And in this case another downside is that Renshaw is an Australian person.)
Fortunately, once we've acknowledged the main guy's brilliance, there's usually a very minor detail from elsewhere in the County Championship that takes our interest and we can just start writing about that instead. (Another thing we greatly enjoy is digressing – although technically, going by the headline, the Renshaw stuff's actually the digression. This next bit's 'the main story'.)
Today Peter Siddle bowled in a woolly hat. Here's a screengrab from footage shot from behind (which, it turns out, is pretty much the worst angle from which to try and clearly distinguish between hat and hair).
Peter Siddle in a woolly hat (via ECB)
Our position on this is that we prefer seam bowlers bowling in woolly hats to spin bowlers bowling in sunglasses. Beyond that, we haven't yet formed much of an opinion.
It's a matter to give some thought to, certainly, but sadly we have not had any available thought capacity due to an unexpected side effect of Siddle's hat bowling. When we saw him doing it, the first thing we thought was: "This sort of reminds us of that time we saw a player wearing a sunhat on a really cold day but then when we looked more closely it turned out he was also wearing a woolly hat under the sunhat."
Here's the thing. We can't remember who that person was and it's really hard to stop thinking about it. We're so close to knowing. So close.
We're not googling because that's against the rules, but we figure it's okay to give you guys the same limited information we have at our disposal in the hope that you just instantly know who it might have been. Then we can just all forget about Double Hat Man and really focus on the bowling-in-a-hat issue instead.
We're pretty sure the person was from the West Indies and that he played for Somerset about the same time that Ian Blackwell did. That's all we've got. Anyone?
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Seen it described as a bobble hat a few times. It has no bobble. It is not a bobble hat.
It's really not a complicated definition.
Ah. But you describe it as "woolly". Are you using the term literally as in the hair of ovis aries or as a more general descriptor of Siddle's headgear? Could it be merely a wool blend or even in fact polyester?
The definition is more complicated than initially meets the eye.
I believe it is a beanie. According to Mountain Warehouse, "Beanie hats are most often made from polyester or acrylic but can also be made from wool or fleece….The casual style of the beanie hat make them best suited to off duty wear and less so to formal attire."
Woolly is at least within the bounds of possibility. Bobble is just outright wrong and makes the event seem more comedic than it actually was, which is just willfully misleading.
What if woolly means wool-like rather than of-wool? Then does it matter if it is synthetic?
A Benny hat, named after him out of off of Crossroads.
Yes, that does date me.
Perhaps he was trying the Boycott thing of looking like a joke bowler? He'd have to wipe people's memories first, of course, on the off chance some Statto vaguely recalls him.
Dan M
As a Canadian, I find it necessary to state that the hat Siddle is wearing is called a tuque.
Now this is a development.
Bobble hats and beanies are most certainly not the same thing. In this piece, Daisy is most certainly sporting a bobble hat, not a beanie:
http://ianlouisharris.com/2017/01/14/dinner-at-zafferano-with-jamil-and-souad-on-friday-evening-followed-by-little-tennis-next-morning-14-january-2017/
Simples.
Two comments, one for each photo. Firstly, that's not a bobble – this is a bobble. Secondly, is that the shape of your head?
Finally on this topic, a picture of me meditating in a different beanie:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ianlharris/40200213141/in/dateposted/
Dan Rickard
No idea mate. But your writing inspires me.
It inspires me to think about writing my own blog (not about cricket), but it hasn't inspired me to actually going to the length of signing in to WordPress.
Special Correspondent Dad
I think I remember this incident. It was a freezing cold day at the start of the season at Old Trafford. Was it Nixon McClean?
Nixon McLean! That's precisely who it was. Cheers Dad.
That was dealt with a lot more swiftly and efficiently than we anticipated.
This is like one of those dramas where a a character is introduced and built up to dramatic effect only go beheaded afew episodes in. So much potential. Ended too soon. Thanks special correspondent dad.
I did think of Nixon McLean but then decided he never played for Somerset (pretty sure he didn't, might have been another southern county but maybe a more fashionable one – hey, one where woolly hat/sunhat combo was considered street in c.2006).
Admit it, this 'played for Somerset' line is just a cunning ruse to get in a mention of us having won two matches, albeit Aussie-assisted, when everyone should really be discussing how a Good County like Notts are top of the league again after being promoted.
Top work by SCD there. I could visualise the fella but the name wouldn't come to me last night, nor did "sleeping on it" help me.
Meanwhile APW is quite right – the hat is a beanie. I have been known to sport one myself on the field of play, although not (to date) for cricket:
http://ianlouisharris.com/2017/04/29/three-courts-in-one-day-29-april-2017/
You see, you should just ask your dad. Like he's (presumably) been saying for as long as you can remember, if there's something you need to know, just ask your dad. There is literally nothing that he (will admit that he) doesn't know.
Well done that dad.
TheSmudge
Nixon McClean used to play for Evenwood CC, so you would have thought he'd learned to be inured to the cold. I met him there once. He did not have any winter headgear, but did have very large hands.
The double-hatted Nixon McLean incident was over 10 years ago. On the same day we were sheltering from the elements in the old Pavilion when we had a friendly chat with a Mrs Mullaney. She was justifiably proud that her son Steven was playing that day. It was possibly his debut. I'm sure she's very proud now he's the captain of Notts.
Hard to disagree with SCD, but I'm going to guess that it must have been this match:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/8204/scorecard/359050/lancashire-vs-somerset-county-championship-division-two/
Mullaney not listed as having played first class until the following year, but perhaps he was in the squad/12th man by then.
King Cricket readers deserve a match report on that match and it is hardly too late in King Cricket terms – well shy of 15 years ago.
I come for the witty and occasionally informative blog posts, but I stay for the comments section arguments about hat semantics.
Well, Micko, where else would you learn that a beanie hat is "best suited to off duty wear and less so to formal attire"? Armed with that piece of knowledge, just think of the sartorial faux pas* you could otherwise have committed but will now be able to avoid.
*I'm using it in the plural sense, of course, but it's spelt the same as the singular version.
But how do we know, despite these assurances, you're not mistakenly using it in its identical singular form?
Daisy has asked me to reassure King Cricket readers that she has consistently procured my beanies from a boutique in Brighton.
The beanies in question are all fashioned from merino wool in County Donegal before being shipped to that fashionable metrosexual emporium on the south coast of England.
We cannot state authoritatively the origins of Peter Siddle's bowling beanie, but Daisy and I both feel sure that similar emporia (or should I say emporiums) should be plentiful in Chelmsford and that Mr Siddle is probably a man with impeccable sartorial instincts.
Groman
They are certainly called Beanies in Australia so if you asked Mr Siddle I am sure he would agree that's what he was wearing. Hoping for a better front on photograph somewhere too
You can find such things at media outlets with a budget.
'Average Bants' indeed
I intended that as a comment on the article Ged linked to, not on the above – I wasn't criticising or questioning the lack of budget or anything like that.
I wonder if Don Bradman ever had to endure 'average bants' – "you average 100 don't you Don? Well, rounded up, anyway! Hahahahaha #bants #average #hashtaggery", etc.
More side on than front on, but hopefully helpful, Groman:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/23372865/burns-beanie-poll-concludes-siddle-headgear-was-average-bants
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