The helmet: three different firsts, then the standard and the rules.

This is a history page. Which helmet a player must wear, and to which standard, is decided by the standard and by each governing body's current rule, set out on helmet rules history and helmet standards. Nothing here says any helmet is safe, certified or allowed.

Three different firsts

Patsy Hendren, 1933

The MCC's history says Hendren is described as the first batter to wear protective headgear, in the summer of 1933, reportedly at his wife's urging. That was the summer the touring West Indians used the Bodyline tactics England had used in Australia, and both sides bowled a great deal of short-pitched bowling; the background is on Bodyline.

Dennis Amiss, World Series Cricket

Sports Gazette (Emma Seligman, 29 November 2024) says Amiss became the first cricketer of the modern era to wear a helmet, in 1977, in World Series Cricket, after seeing the damage Australia's fast bowlers did in the 1974-75 Ashes. The article says he went to an English helmet maker for an adapted motorcycle-style helmet with a visor, and that Packer later bought helmets in bulk from the same firm; that is the article's account and we have not checked it further. A Wikipedia summary puts Amiss's regular use of a helmet in 1978 instead.

The historian Martin Williamson, writing for ESPNcricinfo in 2006, says the broken jaw David Hookes suffered in World Series Cricket sped up the arrival of helmets. Sports Gazette places that injury, from a ball by Andy Roberts, at the Sydney Showground in 1977.

Graham Yallop, March 1978

Australia's Graham Yallop is credited with the first helmet worn in a Test, against West Indies at Bridgetown, Barbados, in March 1978; Wikipedia gives the day as 17 March. An Associated Press account of 2014, seen only in a search summary, describes it as an adapted motorcycle-style helmet with a plastic visor.

Others in the story

A search summary of a Sportskeeda article says Mike Brearley wore protective headgear of his own design in the same period and, with Amiss, helped make helmets common in Tests; we found no dated source for this. Sports Gazette describes Viv Richards, who retired from international cricket in 1991, as the last leading batter never to wear a helmet.

From custom to standard

The British standard for cricket helmets is BS 7928. A standards-store listing, which we saw only as a search summary, gives BS 7928:1998 as the first edition, replaced by BS 7928:2013. The NSW coroner's findings of 4 November 2016 record that BS 7928:2013 was dated December 2013. BSI now lists BS 7928:2013+A1:2019, published 30 June 2019, as the current edition.

Phillip Hughes, 2014

The NSW State Coroner, Magistrate Michael Barnes, found on 4 November 2016 that Phillip Hughes died on 27 November 2014, two days after he was accidentally struck by a ball while batting in a first-class match at the Sydney Cricket Ground, and that his death was a tragic accident. The coroner found the ball hit an area of the left side of his neck that his helmet did not protect, that there was no suggestion the helmet had malfunctioned, and that even the most modern equipment then available would not have protected the place where the blow landed.

Cricket Australia announced an independent review by David Curtain QC on 14 May 2015, and the Curtain review was released on 11 May 2016. The findings, the review and the changes that followed are on Phillip Hughes and the inquest and the Curtain review.

From standard to rule

The ICC's own documents name different editions of the standard. Its helmets web page, as live on 22 October 2026, names BS 7928:2013 in the regulation and describes the 2019 amendment as adding specifications for neck protectors. The ICC Clothing and Equipment Regulations, effective January 2024, require helmets in the mandatory positions to be certified to BS 7928:2013+A1:2019, and BS 7928:2013 for helmets worn at other times. The ICC's later Men's Test Match Playing Conditions (effective June 2025) and Men's One-Day International Playing Conditions (effective October 2026) list the same three mandatory positions but say all helmets must be certified to BS 7928:2013. Both versions are given here because the ICC gives both.

This site does not present helmets as concussion protection. The ECB's Professional and Elite Academy Concussion Guidelines (2026) say head protectors mainly reduce the risk of skull and face fracture rather than concussion. The current Laws, the 2017 Code 4th Edition (2026), also tell umpires judging whether short-pitched bowling is dangerous under Law 41.6.1 to disregard the striker's protective equipment.