For
more than 120 years of existence in International cricket, the bat has undergone lots of changes – perhaps there
has not been significant change in the grip, the quality of willow but
perceived quality and weight have.
Present day bats held by star batsmen display not manufacturers’ names
but mostly the sponsors on the bats. There are many and varied manufacturers
such as : Symonds, Slazenger, Gunn & Moore, Gray Nichols, Puma, BDM, MRF
and more….. those days – there were oil and non-oil bats -there were stories of
seasoning and oiling the oil bats. At one point time, there were reports that
Sunil Gavaskar’s bat had some small pint holes on the back side of the bat
which aided him when he drove the ball. The bats of English willow were
expertly pressed and there would be procedures of oiling with linseed oil and
knocking them over.
For
the not so well informed, bats are made of willow wood, shaped in a regular way
consisting of a long handle wedged into the wood. The flat side is used to hit
the ball, the point of widening into the blade is known as shoulder and bottom
as toe. The wood is tough and shock resistant and has a spring design at
handle.
Modern
bats are usually machine made, the shape of bats have remained in the present
form for too long. Those days Clive
Lloyd, Viv Richards, SandipPatil used heavier bats – now there are many who wield the willow
like a bludgeon – resultantly, even a shot not hit in the sweet spot disappears
into the crowd, making the life of spinners miserable. There was this very
interesting story. In 1983 WC, at Royal Turnbridge Wells, KapilDev scored a
magnificent 175 n.o against Zimbabwe lifting the Indians from 17/5. He
reportedly played with a Slazenger V12 bat. That bat was handed to
KrishSrikkanth who inturn gave it to his Ranji mate – CS Suresh Kumar. Suresh
lived in TP Koil Street, Triplicane and we made a beeline to his house, seeing
the bat and touching it with awe inspiration and regard. In between Dennis
Lillee used an aluminum metal bat in 1979 but could not go on as English team
complained of the ball getting damaged. In one match, Ricky Ponting used a bat
with carbon composite meat.
Away
in UK, a Village cricket club is in news carving out storm-damaged tree that
has stood on its boundary for 125 years into a giant 16ft bat. MailOnline reports on this pine tree, which
has stood on the boundary of a cricket club for 125 years, being carved into a huge bat after it was damaged
in a storm.The tree was planted on the eastern edge of the Shobrooke Park
Cricket Club in Crediton, Devon in 1890, but it was hit by severe gales two
years ago.
The
storms tore the upper boughs off and left just a 30ft trunk and was set to be
chopped down. Cricketers Steve Jones and Bruce Kerry decided the iconic pine
shouldn't go to waste and came up with a plan to save it. It took Mr Kerry, a tree surgeon and Mr
Jones, who is skilled in woodwork, 18 months to carve the 16ft cricket bat out
of the Scots pine.They spent every spare weekend using chainsaws and electric
planers to carve the trunk to the exact proportions of a standard bat.
Though
a traditional cricket bat is made from
willow wood rather than pine, that isn't putting off visitors from admiring.A
business in the area has also offered the prize of a fine bottle of Scotch
whisky to the first batsman who hits the bat with a six.Mr Jones said: 'It
seemed a shame to turn such an iconic tree into firewood so we came up with the
idea to carve it into a cricket bat.The base and the bat have been coated in a
wood preservative and the handle was wrapped with polypropylene rope. Amazingly
it required 360ft of rope to wrap the handle. The top has a lead capping to
keep the rain off.
The
tree is still attached to the roots, when that eventually rots it is assumed, it will fall over. The plan is to cut it free
before it falls, then move the bat around the grounds and lean it up against
other trees. It has become popular, with
visitors to the ground wanting to have photographs taken in front of it.
This
is a specialized T20 bat designed to provide more power and more bat speed.
Before the start of IPL, the big burly Mathew Hayden revealed this at Chennai
during the match practice and it looked like a tooth pick. A bat with shorter
blade and longer handle !!!. – the mongoose bat has its blade 33% shorter than
the conventional one and the handle 43% longer. It meets the basic requirement
and has ICC clearance. Typically, bats weigh 1.1-1.4kg though Clive Lloyd,
Vivian Richards, Sachin Tendulkar have all used heavy bats but with standard
dimensions.
Hayden
may not be the first as few players like AzharMahmood, Stuart Law and Lou
Vincent have used such innovations in domestic leagues. Now it is stated that
the sweet spot is twice the size of the conventional bat, which will make
flashes race to boundary and perhaps some records could get rewritten due to
that. Sachin recently displayed that he does not need all these and kept
rewriting history during that epic double ton. Perhaps he could hit runs with a
stump itself and would not require a special bat.
Interesting
! – in IPL Matthew Hayden introduced ‘mongoose’ bat, the brainchild of inventor
Marcus Codrington Fernandez, a former creative director at the advertising
agency Ogilvy & Mather. Besides, Hayden of CSK, Andrew Symond of Deccan
Chargers and West Indian Dwayne Smith also of DC tried using it – but with
limited success.
With
regards – S. Sampathkumar
14th Aug 2015.
