So after GM, GREY NICHOLS AND KOOKABURA

[sharma]

SS incidentally is Sunridges, a bat manufacturer which started making cricket bats in the late 1970s, early 1980s. My first one was a Jumbo, from them in 1980. However, the original SS is Stuart Surridge, the one made famous by Viv Richards when he was using SS Jumbo, that bat had an extra thick middle, more than 3 inches thick at its thickest point, with specially made edges. Duncan Fearnley was a bat favored by Gavaskar for much of his career, its innovation for Gavaskar was , on his suggestion for bats specially made for him to have minute holes drilled into the bat at the top and near the splice, to reduce air resistance when the bat is swung straight, an amazing concept that no one had really thought of. I had seen a couple of those bats , and the type of holes drilled and the number can actually be designed to assist a certain type of bat movement. In India, at that time the major brand used by most Indian test players was Symonds. They came out with a model called bottle neck, in which the shoulder of the blade was not a sharp edge, but a tapering curve from the handle. This was helpful in ensuring that the ball does not fly off the shoulder of the bat, and it will miss it as it is a curve...just as a bottle neck curves into the middle. Symonds also had a double protrusion behind, along the lines of an SS Jumbo, bit with wight distributed more equally. St Peters, County clipper and Gunn and Moore , were, along with Gray Nicholls the more popular overseas cicket bats. GR Vishwanath used SP and Cc for all his career. Gray Nicholls were the first to come up with the single scooped bats, prominently used by Greg Chappell, and the feather light multi scooped version, that had 2 large and 2 smaller scoops behind the bat to reduce unnecessary weight . Sanspareils Greenland, SG is of course reputed to be the best makers of cricket bats...Sunny Gavaskar had a stake in the company when it started in the late 1980s, and Azhar was a bigtime user with a permanent contract. These so called MRF bats and Brittania bats are not cricket bats made by them, as someone pointed out they are stickers. But due to a law in 1993, to counter proxy advertising, any company passing off as a bat manufacturer, must make and sell a minimum quantity of cricket bats in the market. So we would have Hero Honda, Brittania and MRF bats , made for school children , a few thousands probably, to meet this criterion.

you sir are now officially my fav poster on ICF

[Dirty_South]

SS incidentally is Sunridges, a bat manufacturer which started making cricket bats in the late 1970s, early 1980s. My first one was a Jumbo, from them in 1980. However, the original SS is Stuart Surridge, the one made famous by Viv Richards when he was using SS Jumbo, that bat had an extra thick middle, more than 3 inches thick at its thickest point, with specially made edges. Duncan Fearnley was a bat favored by Gavaskar for much of his career, its innovation for Gavaskar was , on his suggestion for bats specially made for him to have minute holes drilled into the bat at the top and near the splice, to reduce air resistance when the bat is swung straight, an amazing concept that no one had really thought of. I had seen a couple of those bats , and the type of holes drilled and the number can actually be designed to assist a certain type of bat movement. In India, at that time the major brand used by most Indian test players was Symonds. They came out with a model called bottle neck, in which the shoulder of the blade was not a sharp edge, but a tapering curve from the handle. This was helpful in ensuring that the ball does not fly off the shoulder of the bat, and it will miss it as it is a curve...just as a bottle neck curves into the middle. Symonds also had a double protrusion behind, along the lines of an SS Jumbo, bit with wight distributed more equally. St Peters, County clipper and Gunn and Moore , were, along with Gray Nicholls the more popular overseas cicket bats. GR Vishwanath used SP and Cc for all his career. Gray Nicholls were the first to come up with the single scooped bats, prominently used by Greg Chappell, and the feather light multi scooped version, that had 2 large and 2 smaller scoops behind the bat to reduce unnecessary weight . Sanspareils Greenland, SG is of course reputed to be the best makers of cricket bats...Sunny Gavaskar had a stake in the company when it started in the late 1980s, and Azhar was a bigtime user with a permanent contract. These so called MRF bats and Brittania bats are not cricket bats made by them, as someone pointed out they are stickers. But due to a law in 1993, to counter proxy advertising, any company passing off as a bat manufacturer, must make and sell a minimum quantity of cricket bats in the market. So we would have Hero Honda, Brittania and MRF bats , made for school children , a few thousands probably, to meet this criterion.

wow...excellent post :hatsoff:

[Sachinism]

Get bats from Diana Sports, Mumbai :two_thumbs_up:

[cochise]

They came out with a model called bottle neck, in which the shoulder of the blade was not a sharp edge, but a tapering curve from the handle. This was helpful in ensuring that the ball does not fly off the shoulder of the bat, and it will miss it as it is a curve...just as a bottle neck curves into the middle.

How come we don't see this anymore? It seems a great idea and one would think it would be incorporated into new designs...

[King]

There are some really good cricket bats going around these days. The MRFs are chosen English Willow grade 1 with a huge bow. In the past they weren't manufacturing cricket gears but used to sign up the players to use thier brand name. Now they are into cricket gear making. They have a range of cricket bats available and among them are the Tendulkar edition (Genius) and Lara edition (Wizard 400) are the best of all. These are chosen English Willow grade 1 bats. They also have bonzer and the rest that are grade 3 or 4 type English willows. Laxmans, Tendulkars and a lot of Indian players use morrant cricket pads that are very light and comes with two straps instead of the traditional 3. MRF are now also into making those pads. I have used them and they are awesome. They are very light and moulded to fit the legs quite comfortably. Of the other brands Grey Nicholas have a carbon handle bats with a huge middle and thick willow. The handles are hallow and are made of carbon without using cane. Matthew Hayden uses one of those. These bats are awesome too. They can afford to have really thick will considering the carbon handle reduced the weight of the willow. Slazenger pros used to be fantastic willows but the recent range are not that great. GM continue to be one of the best bats around but these usually aren't bow type willows. Bow type willows tend to have smaller sweet spot but have the ability to send he ball a long way if hit from the sweet spot. The traditional willows such as GMs, Slazengers, Grey Nicholas and Duncan Fearnley have larger sweet spot but without bows. With MRF now selling cricket gears you are bound to see MRFs being used by a lot of players. Let alone international or domestic players even MRFs are popular among club players. At least one in every club team these days tend to use MRFs. MRF is a huge hit with the kids as well. We see a lot of kids here using MRFs. I guess any kid looks up to Tendulkar and would like to emulate him. That includes using the bat he uses as well. MRF has solely been made popular mostly by Tendulkar followed by Lara and Steve Waugh. I'm sure MRF are only going to get seriously into marketing their product widely rather than not. At least till about the time Tendulkar is going to play international cricket MRF will continue to do well.

[Sachinism]

MRF pads are like the Morrants, best bads ever

[King]

MRF pads are like the Morrants' date=' best bads ever[/quote'] Try MRF Genius gloves they are bloody good too. They have 4 splits on every finger and the leather they use for palm is of the highest quality. If there is something they can do better is with the helmets. Albion at the moment are the best helmets available. They should perhaps copy that.

[Sachinism]

I'll check out MRF gloves the next time im in India I remember seeing on TV once Kiran More running a factory that makes helmets, what company was that, anyone know?

[guju24]

His match bat is either a BDM or an SS. His gloves, pads, elbow guards, are all definitely BDM . Dravid has always used an SG, and Ganguly, Laxman used SS Tons for a long time too until recently. Sehwag is another SS man.

glows are vampire...u can easily see the V symbol on the glows...my bad i saw ur post above lol

[Predator_05]

glows are vampire...u can easily see the V symbol on the glows...my bad i saw ur post above lol

He uses both of them. Probably uses the Vampire more now though. Tendulkar in BDM gloves; Check out the 'MRF' handwritten onto the pads...

[vroomfondel]

ravi & hs, great post. curious how all bats are made out of willow -- either indian or english. Baseball bats, however, are made out of maple or ash (which are supposed to be lighter than willow). They have a lot of pop in them too. And the principles for looking for a good bat seem to be the same for baseball and cricket -- look for long, uninterrupted grains. Actually, it's the same for wooden instruments too. If you're looking for a sitar or surbahar, you look for teak or tun wood (cedar) with long grains without splotches around the neck, and that will give you the best resonance (though the resonator is not wood but gourd). I know stumps are made of ash, but has anyone heard of cricket bats made from other types of wood?

[King]

ravi & hs, great post. curious how all bats are made out of willow -- either indian or english. Baseball bats, however, are made out of maple or ash (which are supposed to be lighter than willow). They have a lot of pop in them too. And the principles for looking for a good bat seem to be the same for baseball and cricket -- look for long, uninterrupted grains. Actually, it's the same for wooden instruments too. If you're looking for a sitar or surbahar, you look for teak or tun wood (cedar) with long grains without splotches around the neck, and that will give you the best resonance (though the resonator is not wood but gourd). I know stumps are made of ash, but has anyone heard of cricket bats made from other types of wood?

The willow tree nurtured and grown in England is plainly called English willow. The ones that are grown in Kashmir are rightly called Kashmir willow. The older the age of the willow used the better the quality of the bat. Ideally I look for a couple of butterfly knots meaning the willow is fairly old. Long straight lines on the willow means it's of good quality and is a fairly old willow. Other types of wood cannot be ideally used simply because of the nature of the wood. Willow is a very soft wood and the ball pings off willow like no other wood. Imagine using timber, teak or pine. These sorts of wood are quite hard and the ball wouldn't bounce off the wood. Also these hard wood would cause massive damage to the cricket ball if hit hard with it. Willow is very soft and enables the object hitting it at force to ping off. There was once an aluminium bat used by Lillee but that had similar effect as other wood. The ball gets damaged and also the ball doesn't come off the bat nicely. Even if MCC found it fine to use the aluminium bats not many would have purchased it.

[Indus_Army]

Anybody remember the Power bats? Those were my favorite bats..

:two_thumbs_up: "Striving for the glory, it's the power cricket story". was the punchline of their TV ad. I tend to purchase gear mostly from the traditional equipment manufacturers - BDM, SG etc. The BDM gear is great value. BDM bats tend to last quite long, especially if one spends time to check for the right grain structure. Keeping up with the times, I'm sitting on a new SS Ton special edition...need to knock it in though. Ravi: It's news to me that MRF actually manufacture cricket equipment. I always thought they re-branded top quality stuff manufactured by Sunridges. I guess I haven't kept up with the developments. I'll check out some MRF bats, when I get a chance.

[Donny]

Excellent topic, Tics. :regular_smile: I'm somewhat surprised that a player of Tendulkar's standing would be party to such deception. He certainly doesn't need the money. Also that the BCCI allows this sort of thing. Thanks for the pics, Preds. Quite revealing. It was outlawed, some years back, in Australia as it contravened the Fair Trading Act - misleading and deceptive conduct by competitors. The Aussie players used their favourite bats and just added the stickers of the company they were contracted to. Before they were pinged for this practice, I had noticed a very senior Oz batsman's bat was not (different side profile) what the stickers indicated it actually was. The other pertinent aspect of all this is: Club cricketers, teenagers, kids etc. buying an MRF bat (any brand) so they can use' the bat Sachin uses' are also being conned. Most top players have the bat made to their own specific requirements. The ones bought 'off the rack' are quite different. Lara and Waugh didn't 'choose' to use MRF stickered bats, they were paid huge ammounts to do so. Heresay, but nonetheless to the point: Shortly after Tugger signed to MRF, an opposition state player sledged him when he came out to bat, "So, ya reckon you can prolong ya career using a Tendulkar bat" followed by much laughter from team mates. The reply was shot back, "Mate, what they're paying me to use this (holds bat up) would pay for your house, twice over" :regular_smile:

[Cricketics]

Heresay, but nonetheless to the point: Shortly after Tugger signed to MRF, an opposition state player sledged him when he came out to bat, "So, ya reckon you can prolong ya career using a Tendulkar bat" followed by much laughter from team mates. The reply was shot back, "Mate, what they're paying me to use this (holds bat up) would pay for your house, twice over" :regular_smile:

:two_thumbs_up: never knew about this one.. thanks for sharing p.s - Good post Ravi.. and those MRF Genius gloves you mentioned are fantastic

[Predator_05]

What i find even more strange is how some Indian cricketers regularly wear apparel of two fierce competitors - Nike and Adidas. Nike, as you all know, is the official kit maker for the Indian cricket team. However, you have guys like Tendulkar and Sehwag who are contracted to Adidas. And let's not forget that Reebok is now an Adidas-owned brand. You can always see Tendulkar geared up in Nike flannels, but his shoes are clearly Adidas. Not to mention all the other Indian batsmen that use Reebok bats. Before the new kits were made (prior to the '07 World Cup) even Tendulkar's flannels had a small Adidas logo on them, while he sported a Nike logo on the shirt. How ridiculous is that ? I have never seen this happen in any sport. Sponsors pay top dollar to athletes for endorsing their products and break the bank to make sure they don't even think about other brands, yet here in the cricket world you have players using gear from two rivals simultaneously ! And the companies seem to have no problems with it ?!

[Cricketics]

[Donny]

What i find even more strange is how some Indian cricketers regularly wear apparel of two fierce competitors - Nike and Adidas. Nike, as you all know, is the official kit maker for the Indian cricket team. However, you have guys like Tendulkar and Sehwag who are contracted to Adidas. And let's not forget that Reebok is now an Adidas-owned brand. You can always see Tendulkar geared up in Nike flannels, but his shoes are clearly Adidas. Not to mention all the other Indian batsmen that use Reebok bats. Before the new kits were made (prior to the '07 World Cup) even Tendulkar's flannels had a small Adidas logo on them, while he sported a Nike logo on the shirt. How ridiculous is that ? I have never seen this happen in any sport. Sponsors pay top dollar to athletes for endorsing their products and break the bank to make sure they don't even think about other brands, yet here in the cricket world you have players using gear from two rivals simultaneously ! And the companies seem to have no problems with it ?!

It's what the kefuffle was/is (not sure if it's been satisfactorily resolved) about in the Windies. The team had one sponsor and certain individual players had others, with some in direct competition to the main sponsor. Love the Pepsi/Coke pic, Tics. Good get. :regular_smile: