Except for his debut, Jack Russell wore the same white hat throughout his first-class career while keeping wicket, often with his collar up and sunglasses on. "It's washed twice a season, and to dry it,

I use a glass biscuit jar, a tea cosy and a tea towel," Russell wrote in his autobiography. "The hat fits on top of all three, and is then, after starching, placed in the airing cupboard, thereby keeping its shape."

But in 1994 in Barbados, in an attempt to dry it faster, Russell put his hat in an oven, ending up charring it.

Two years later, the organising committee of the 1996 World Cup decreed that Russell wear coloured headgear to go with England's blue jersey. He refused and threatened to walk out of the tournament. After frantic fax exchanges between Calcutta and London, headed "Jack Russell Hat Crisis", the World Cup technical committee allowed Russell to wear his white floppy.

When Russell retired in 2006, his former captain Mike Atherton described his hat as a "dirty, smelly, grubby, patched-up, stitched-up, upside-down-flowerpot-of-a-thing". Atherton had reason to loathe it as it was the cause of many confrontations with the suits.

In 1998, then ECB chairman Ian MacLaurin asked the players to wear the blue England cap for every game of the West Indies tour, but Russell would not budge. After multiple meetings, it was agreed that Russell would trim the issued hat to his comfort.

For his final ODI, however, Russell did manage to pull off a hat-trick. He stitched a blue hat over his original and said goodbye to international cricket on his own terms.
(Vintage Cricket)