When I first started playing cricket the wearing of helmets when batting was compulsory for juniors. No one really wanted to wear them, but we had no choice and soon enough we hardly noticed that we were batting in a “lid”. As soon as you were old enough to play in the seniors, which for me was when I was fourteen and a half, you were given a choice as to if you wanted to bat in a helmet, club cap, or hat. The strangeness of the situation that it was mandatory for me to don a helmet when I played against a thirteen year old kid in the morning and a choice when I played against fully grown men in the afternoon escaped me at the time.
At first, as I was a top order batsman and would be facing the new hard ball and the faster bowlers I wore a helmet in the seniors too, but by the time I was sixteen I'd switched to a club cap. When it came to my sporting pursuits, I was a very confident (some may say arrogant) teenager. I've often heard it said that teenagers consider themselves to be bulletproof, and when it came to footy and cricket, I was certainly no exception.