Buying a cricket bat!

[thevortex]

Congratulations, Bumblebee. That is my first choice bat now and it is just amazing. This is the same bat that Kallis, Collingwood and a few others seem to be using. Or that is what I convince myself with :).

[Bumblebee]

what i like about the bat is, that there no blemishes on the bat! would be using in nets, in the coming two weeks, would then give the final verdict ;-)

[achilles]

Gunn & Moore bats are good. Among Indian, Sanspareils Greenlands is the best brand. BDM is also great. South African, Australian, Windian & English International cricketers use them.

[SJS50]

It has become easier to buy a good bat today if one has the money. Once you have decided to buy a good bat (an English willow naturally) the top companies all make good bats. There is a bit to choose between bats. The most important aspect of a bat is its 'throw' (applicable to all) and its balance (a bit personal). Go to a good sports shop one which keeps a large number of bats in each brand. Pick up the bats from the range you are buying and stand in your normal stance and then pick up the bat as you would just at the beginning of any stroke, straight back please :). You will feel the difference in the way each bat feels in your hand. This is the balance. Its a combination of the bats weight and its weight distribution.

Note :- Mind you it will vary for how high or low on the handle you grip the bat thats why it is a bit personal. It will also vary a bit, not much though, depending upon your own height - again making it personal.

This is the balance of the bat. A bat with the right balance will feel lighter than another with the same weight but not so good a balance. Pick out the bats that feel the best. For these short listed bats test the throw. Ask the shopkeeper for a cricket ball. Better still carry one with you for he may not give you one. Knock the ball on the face of the bat and feel the 'feel' of ball on bat. You can tell how good the throw is. The sound as well as the feel as the ball comes off the face of the bat is different. Then look for the size of the sweet spot. Its no good having a bat which feels great when the ball hits a certain place. Make sure it has a good feel in a fairly large area. You don't expect the bat to have a great throw at the very toe or very close to the splice but that's not where you are going to be playing with. Shortlist, if possible 2-3 bats from these. Now you check for the feel, the balance and the throw once again for these. If the choice is difficult for they are very similar go for the one that has the better balance. Its a safer bet. A bat with a good throw to start with will get better as you play it in. The balance of the bat never changes. Pick up the bat of any top batsman and chances are you will love the way the bat 'picks up'. This is the balance. It is the single most important thing (in my humble opinion) in a good bat taking a good throw as a given. Remember almost all top bats have two qualities, they have a good throw and they cost a lot of money. The same can not be said of their balance. That varies considerably and that matters.

[Temujin Khaghan]

I live in USA. I bought from UK. Shipping was not expensive for me.

showpiece or do you play?

[Temujin Khaghan]

i got a Slazanger-Pure Blade (classic) it is not a top notch bat, but it should be fine for me, as this would be my first year playing league cricket here in Austria. here is the pic!

thats a decent blade. but i dont think u played even a lil bit with it.

[SJS50]

i got a Slazanger-Pure Blade (classic) it is not a top notch bat, but it should be fine for me, as this would be my first year playing league cricket here in Austria. here is the pic!

New bats look so good. One feels like taking it in one's hand and taking a knock :) Happy batting.

[Bumblebee]

thats a decent blade. but i dont think u played even a lil bit with it.

i just got the bat two days back :winky: dont have mallot with me right now! would start knocking it next week, when our season begins

[thevortex]

SJS - nifty little writeup on bat selection. You forgot to mention the 'grains' aspect while picking the willow. Also the grade of the willow is another aspect people often consider. Not rocket science though as grades of willows coincide with the prices of the bats. Lastly though, selecting a bat is neither an art nor a science. Somewhere in between. Just enough science in it to keep the rational ones thinking. And just enough art and innuendo in it to keep the others salivating and excited. I love it. Long story short - you can mess up big time in bat selection even if every known rule is followed on this subject. Precisely because it is entirely personal. You have got to find out what bats dont work for you and why in order to then almost infallibly select the ones that do work for you.

[SJS50]

SJS - nifty little writeup on bat selection. You forgot to mention the 'grains' aspect while picking the willow. Also the grade of the willow is another aspect people often consider. Not rocket science though as grades of willows coincide with the prices of the bats. Lastly though, selecting a bat is neither an art nor a science. Somewhere in between. Just enough science in it to keep the rational ones thinking. And just enough art and innuendo in it to keep the others salivating and excited. I love it. Long story short - you can mess up big time in bat selection even if every known rule is followed on this subject. Precisely because it is entirely personal. You have got to find out what bats dont work for you and why in order to then almost infallibly select the ones that do work for you.

No I didn't intentionally. You can hardly see them on the top bats nowadays :) I walked recently in to a sports shop that seemed to have a huge bat selection. I went up and asked for their top bracket bats and was amazed to see how they were all bleached and were almost white and the grains could barely be seen. Moreover, with the demand for bats having grown exponentially, the trees are now being used up faster and much earlier in their lives. This means that more grains are less likely to be available (each grain represents one year in a tree's life). So other methods are being adopted to make the willow soft and ready to use straight out of the plastic cover. Many bat manufacturers do not talk any more of the issues with very few grains for it affects their marketing of such bats. But I still have my preferences for an ideal of about 9 grains on the face. Just for the record, the grains refer to the straight lines (and they MUST be straight) that run along the length of the face of the bat. Ideally they should number between 6-7(minimum) to 11-12 (maximum) The more grains (or the narrower the lines) the softer the willow. This will mean the throw will be better. The bats with very few or wider grains will have relatively poorer throw but will last longer being harder. There is a famous incident (it is true) about the cricketer who took a piece of willow to a bat manufacturer to have a bat made out of it. It had 22 grains ! The bat manufacturer informed him that the bat will be great but may not last for more than 200 runs ! Bradman normally played with bats of around ten grains. I was a stickler during my playing days and insisted on 8-10 grains only. I played for many years for a delhi club called Rohtak Road Gymkhana which was run by a very fine and kind (and very very humorous) man called Dharamveer Jain who we all called Lalaji. Lala ji always joked about me and said he has to set at least half a day aside every time Swaranjeet calls up to say he wants to come and select a new bat. Its not a complete exaggeration. I would go through 50-60 bats before I would find what I thought was perfect. They were always light but most importantly, the balance was perfect. I remember the late Vijay Mehra coming to our nets, asking me for my bat to knock and saying to me, "Kaka (boy) your bats are always so good, how do you manage it" I said "Sir, I dont have the luxury to call up the manufacturer to pick up a dozen of his best bats and chose from those. So I go through his entire stock". :) Yes grains are important. Do not buy a bat with very few grains, it could turn out to be useless and whats worse you may not be able to throw it away for it may not break. Buy one with far too many on the other hand and you may need to carry as many as Tendulkar :) Seriously, 7-11 is a good number.

[SJS50]

Oh yes. Here is the site that wrote about that 22 grain bat... excerpts...

Years ago and even today there was the belief that a good cricket bat should have as many grains as possible but this is simply a fallacy and in fact such a bat though it may play well early, will often not last very long at all. A narrow grain therefore may feel good early but do not expect too much life out of it. A classic example of this and quite coincidently at the time, a well known international cricketer (we were kindly asked not to identify this Test player) came in to see Jeremy for a few clefts of willow to use in an upcoming Test match. The piece that this cricketer chose had about 22 grains in it and had the red patch of ‘heartwood’ (centre of willow tree) running straight through the middle of the cleft. . . . he most important point to note hear though was the advice Jeremy gave to him that such a piece whilst being a ‘belter’ would only last 200 runs at the very most before it would split and break up. Humorously this cricketer said that would be fine and that he would be very happy to get “200†runs with it as he only intended to use it for an innings. So for some International cricketers who quite literally use a cricket bat per innings (including a practice hit with it) they prefer the heartwood with a multitude of grains in the blade. It’s a good cricket bat but don’t expect it to last much more than a good innings because as Jeremy assured us – such a bat will split. Conversely there are some well known cricketers who prefer their favourite cricket bats to have between say 8 to 12 grains in it as they prefer to use them over a number of test matches. These cricket bats take a little longer to ‘run or knock in’ but once they have been run in they are as good if not better than the very narrow grain bats AND they will last a lot longer. There is a simple logic behind all of this as well. A narrower grain bat means that it has taken much longer to reach willow harvesting maturity and the wood is obviously much older. For instance, a cricket bat with 15 grains in it has taken at least 15 years to grow (a grain per year) whilst a bat with say 8 grains in it has taken eight years to grow the corresponding size. Narrower grain wood is therefore older and much more susceptible to breaking and splitting simply because the willow has aged a lot more. Being a natural substance it is quite obviously more prone to breaking and splitting.

So for the everyday club, grade, state (and even Test) cricketer a grain width of between 6 and 12 grains is ideal because once it is run in you can expect exceptional performance and a long life as well

. A narrower grain bat is fine (assuming they are straight grains) but do not expect to get a long life from this kind of cricket bat. It is probably worth noting the obvious at this point that the best piece of willow in the world means nothing unless it is then given to a master cricket bat maker to balance and craft the cleft into a sensational cricket bat. Including the grains of a cricket bat,

the single most important aspect of choosing a cricket bat for yourself is the way it feels for YOU when you shadow bat with it. Balance and feel are without a doubt the most important elements of a cricket bat. The first thing the best batsmen in the world will do when they choose a new bat of the rack will be to feel its balance and pickup

. Only if that feels absolutely comfortable and right will they then inspect the willow for its quality. As we have said, the best willow in the world means nothing if that particular bat isn’t balanced properly and doesn’t feel good to you. Accordingly

choose your cricket bat on balance and feel first and then on then willow quality

....

[thevortex]

Bravo, SJS! Needless to say I agree. Although occasionally I am still able to make out grains in the bats that I see at sports shop here at Chennai.

[Serani]

Im hoping my current bat [kookaburra angry beast] breaks so I can buy a new one, its just hanging on in there and im not gonna throw it away.

[SJS50]

Bravo, SJS! Needless to say I agree. Although occasionally I am still able to make out grains in the bats that I see at sports shop here at Chennai.

Yes thats true as I mentioned. The bats are bleached and treated chemically, I believe to make the wood soft enough for better throw and to eliminate the oiling and running in time that was such an integral part of breaking in a new bat once. Its purely a question of supply and demand. Even till 1985 we could go to the bat manufacturers in Jullunder, Meerut and Ghaziabad and select the bats at the factories itself - even as club cricketers. The bat manufacturers used to come to Delhi and meet the people running the top clubs to market their bats. Mind you these are not any Ton Dick and Harry suppliers these are people who are big names in the industry world wide. Test players used there bats then too.