Welcome to The Spin, the Guardian’s weekly (and free) cricket newsletter. Here’s an extract from this week’s edition. To receive the full version every Wednesday, just pop your email in below: An 11-year-old boy wears his cap everywhere, pulled low down over his brow, all the better for displaying the white rose stitched above his eyeline. He wears it when he accompanies his mum, Helen, around the shops in Sheffield. He wears it when he goes with his younger brother, Billy, to watch his dad, Matthew, play at the local cricket club. Being the older brother, the boy bats first, in his cap, while his brother bowls at him on the boundary edge.
A few months later the headwear in question, a Yorkshire schoolboy’s cricket cap, is still firmly perched atop the boy’s bright blond hair on a family trip to Trent Bridge to watch Nasser Hussain’s England play India. It’s still there after the close of play as he waits with his mum in the car park for the players to emerge. One of them, Craig White, notices the small boy’s head gear.
