Chris Rogers reveals shocking tale about damaging his first ever Baggy Green cap
Nothing symbolises the pride of being an Australian Test cricketer more than the revered Baggy Green cap that they receive on the their debut. They see it as the biggest reward of their career and show the utmost care to preserve it till the day they hang up their boots and beyond, but former cricketer Chris Rogers revealed that he had caused damage to his first ever Baggy Green with scissors.
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Shocking indeed, but Rogers added that he had only intended to make a slight cut so as to allow what was a tight cap slightly stretchable, only to see, irrevocable damage being done to the prized possession.
Rogers, who made his long-awaited debut for Australia only at the age of 30, featuring in the Perth Test during India’s tour of Australia in 2007/08, was handed his Baggy Green by then recently retired Justin Langer. Much to Rogers’ dismay, though, he found that the cap size was a lot smaller than what he was hoping for.
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"I haven’t really told many people but the first Baggy Green I got was too tight for me because I’ve got a big head," Rogers told cricket.com.au. "It was around 40 degrees (centigrade), I had the cap on, we fielded day one and I was getting big headaches.”
"Then on day two I went to put my cap on and just immediately got a headache – it was too tight. So I just tried snipping it with scissors and tried to stretch it, and I actually ripped my Baggy Green,” revealed a rather embarrassed Rogers.
The 38-year-old revealed that his act had caught the attention of a few of his Australian teammates at the time.
"Phil Jaques (Rogers’ new Test opening partner) was next to me and he just said "what have you done?. And then (vice-captain Adam) Gilchrist came over and was laughing at me and I didn’t know what to do," he said.
Rogers revealed that he had to borrow a Baggy Green from Brad Hogg (who was not playing in that match) for Day two and described an amusing incident involving the home crowd when he took to the field that day.
"When I went out on the field I remember some bloke in the crowd yelling out to me "I bet you slept in that (cap) last night," Rogers recalled. “And I was like 'it’s not even mine'. But I got another one, fortunately. It's not something you want to do in your first Test match, that’s for sure."
Rogers, who made only 4 and 15 during his Test debut, didn’t feature again for Australia until 2013, but this time around, the left-hander ensured that he was not going to let the opportunity slip away, forging a formidable opening partnership with David Warner for nearly two years, before retiring from international cricket after the 2015 Ashes series.