A dad came in one April with a printed list from his son's club and a fairly grim expression. Eleven items on it. Helmet, pads, gloves, box, thigh pad, inner thigh, arm guard, chest guard, forearm guard, batting inners, a bag to put it all in. The lad was ten and had played one season of soft-ball cricket. The dad wanted to know what the damage was going to be.
The honest answer was about a third of the list, that season. The rest could wait, and some of it he would never need. Club kit lists are written to cover every eventuality and every ability, not to tell you what a ten-year-old moving up to hard ball actually requires in his first summer.
Here is how we split it.
The four things a junior genuinely needs for hard-ball cricket
A helmet that fits and meets the standard
This is the one item where nothing gets compromised. Junior helmets should meet BS7928, the British Standard for cricket head protection, and ECB guidance requires helmets to this standard for junior players in most club and school cricket — while batting, while keeping up to the stumps, and when fielding close to the bat. Requirements do get reviewed and individual clubs and schools can apply their own rules on top, so confirm the current position with whoever runs the cricket before you buy.
Two practical points. First, buy it to fit now, not to grow into. A loose helmet moves on impact, and the gap between peak and grille is what a ball gets through. Second, the grille must be adjusted so the gap is smaller than a cricket ball — most helmets allow this and plenty arrive set wrong out of the box. Many junior helmets now come with, or accept, a neck protector at the back; worth having.
An abdominal guard
Cheap, small, absolutely non-negotiable from the first hard-ball session. Buy the junior size, and buy a pair of support shorts or briefs with a pouch rather than expecting it to stay put inside ordinary underwear. Get a spare, because they go missing.
Batting pads
Junior pads run through sizes usually labelled something like small boys, boys and youths before you get to small adult. Sizing is by leg length rather than age. Held against the leg, the top of the pad should sit above the knee with the knee roll centred over the kneecap, and the bottom should reach the instep without digging into the top of the foot when they walk. If the knee roll sits on the shin, it is too big.
Batting gloves
Fingers should reach the ends of the finger stalls with a few millimetres to spare. Too big and the padding sits in the wrong place, which is how knuckles get hit through a glove that supposedly fitted. A pair of cotton inners underneath makes them last longer and stops the smell setting in.
The maybes: buy them when the bowling gets quicker
Everything in this group is genuinely useful at some stage. None of it is urgent for a ten-year-old facing bowling that barely reaches the keeper.
- Thigh pad. The first thing to add once the bowling picks up, usually around Year 8 or 9. A combined inner and outer thigh set is comfortable and cheap. If your child gets hit on the thigh once, they will ask for it themselves.
- Arm guard. Worth it for players facing genuine pace, or anyone who has taken one on the forearm and is now backing away. Otherwise it gets left in the bag.
- Chest guard. Same reasoning. Top-order players and nervous ones benefit; a number nine who bats for two overs a season does not.
- Wicketkeeping gloves, inners and keeping pads. Only if they actually keep, and only once the club has stopped rotating five children through the gloves each week.
What you can leave on the shelf
Some things on kit lists are there because the list was written for the whole club rather than for a junior in their first hard-ball season.
- A second-hand helmet. The one item never to buy used. You cannot see impact damage from the outside, and you do not know what it has already taken.
- Full protective kit for soft-ball and windball cricket. Dynamos and Blast-style sessions use soft balls precisely so that children do not need armour. Pads and helmets there are usually the club's, not yours.
- Top-end lightweight pads for a growing child. They will be outgrown in two seasons. Mid-range junior pads are fine, and the weight difference matters far less than the fit does.
- Spiked shoes for the youngest age groups. Rubber-soled cricket shoes or clean trainers are fine on most junior surfaces, and plenty of clubs and schools prefer them anyway. Save the spikes for when they are bowling properly.
- Their own bat, in the first fortnight. Most junior sections have club bats. Borrow one for a few weeks and find out what size and weight suits them before spending.
Fit checks that take thirty seconds each
Do these in the shop or on the kitchen floor before the first session, not in the car park before a match.
- Helmet: fastened, ask them to nod hard and shake their head. It should move with the head, not on it. Two fingers should not fit between the strap and the chin.
- Grille gap: hold a cricket ball up to the gap between peak and grille. If it goes through or nearly does, adjust the grille.
- Pads: get them to run five steps and crouch. If the top strap slides down or the pad rotates around the calf, the straps need shortening or the size is wrong.
- Gloves: ask them to grip a bat handle and hold the top-hand position. If they cannot close their hand comfortably, the gloves are too big or too stiff.
Check the whole lot again at the start of every season. Children grow through kit over a winter, and the pads that fitted in August are frequently three inches short by May. It is also worth emptying the bag out after every match — damp pads and gloves left zipped in a hot kitbag rot straps and perish foam faster than any amount of use does.
Junior helmets, pads, gloves and guards are in our cricket collection, and there are kitbags big enough to hold a growing junior's kit without everything getting crushed. Bring them in for a helmet fitting if you would rather not judge it from a size chart.