Dennis Amiss remains linked with two very different parts of cricket history: batting records and batting protection. In an interview with The Hindu at Edgbaston Golf Club in Birmingham, the former England batter looked back at both, including the early days of helmets in the game.
Amiss scored the first hundred in ODI history. He was also known for turning starts into large scores. Of his 11 Test centuries, eight went past 150. Yet in the interview, one of the clearest memories he discussed was a practical one: why he felt batters needed head protection before leaving for Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket in Australia.
Why the helmet idea came up
Amiss said he first raised the subject with Tony Greig. His concern was simple. World Series Cricket would bring together a large group of genuinely fast bowlers, and Amiss had already experienced the pace of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson in Australia.
He recalled telling Greig that they were going to Australia for Kerry Packer’s competition and would face 16 bowlers who could all bowl at 90 miles an hour. Amiss said he was at a helmet place at the time and thought it might be possible to get protection made for cricket.
He admitted he did not remember exactly how he came to be there. But the thought itself stayed with him. In his words, the reaction was: “my gosh, helmets for cricket!”
Before helmets became familiar
According to Amiss, helmets were not being worn in cricket at that stage. He noted that Mike Brearley had used a skullcap, but said nobody was wearing a helmet in the way that later became familiar to players and viewers.
Amiss said he took three helmets out. He wore one himself and Tony Greig had another. The need for protection soon became harder to ignore when David Hookes had his jaw broken while trying to hook Andy Roberts in Sydney.
The list of fast bowlers around that period was a major part of Amiss’s thinking. He named Michael Holding, Andy Roberts and Garth Le Roux among those involved, and said Holding was the fastest when he found his rhythm.
Reaction to a new piece of equipment
Amiss said he did not expect the helmet to be accepted quickly in England, a country he described as traditional in its cricket habits. But the idea began to spread, and he said he was amazed by how it took off.
The equipment also developed. Amiss referred to the later arrival of the grill, which added another layer of protection for batters. Looking back, he described the helmet as something he had started, while also sounding surprised by how widely the idea was later adopted.
The interview also placed Amiss’s memories beside his playing record. The first ODI hundred and the habit of making very large Test scores are part of how he is remembered. His comments on helmets, though, show a different side of a player thinking about risk at a time when fast bowling was central to the contest.
Amiss’s account is not framed as a polished invention story. It is more direct than that: a batter saw the pace he and others were going to face, spoke to a senior teammate, and looked for a way to reduce the danger. For him, the surprise appears to be that a practical idea from that moment became accepted far beyond the group that first used it.
Source: The Hindu Cricket.