If the cap fits…
There can’t be many people who can wear a quartered and tasselled silver cricket cap without looking as if they’re searching for a Hackett window display to stand in. But New Zealand captain Richie McCaw managed it the other day in the sheeting rain at Auckland on the occasion of his 100th Test appearance in an All Black shirt. In lesser hands — or on lesser heads — the cap would have resembled an undersized miner’s hat crossed with the Wellesley House under-14s school colours, and would have guaranteed the wearer several weeks of relentless bullying. Sitting atop McCaw, it only reinforced the image of an iconic figure hewn out of some timeless cliff face.
New Zealand rugby, like Australian cricket with its beloved baggy green, takes kit very seriously. You don’t mess with the All Black jersey; you wear it with understated but ferocious pride.
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