By Rex Clementine
We may have not seen anything as outrageous as Dennis Lillee’s aluminum bat, but the manufacturers of the sport’s most important equipment are coming up with new innovations that are catering to the demands of the modern game and younger generation. Innovations are certainly welcome as long as the bats meet the required demands of 4.25 inches (around 11 centimeters) and all.
The intensity of cricket with players now being involved in the game around the clock has resulted in every international batter at least carrying half a dozen bats. There was a good display of Babar Azam’s armoury ahead of the India – Pakistan clash at MCG last month. He has with him around ten cricket bats.
With T-20 cricket mushrooming, lighter bats seem to be the trend these days but there are also bats coming up with a variety of designs, attractive colour that automatically catches the eyes of the viewers in television.
The retail market is as active as ever, but the online market is thriving beyond the usual borders of cricket. The online market is providing bats for best prices and even tailormade for requests of individuals with preferences of batters varying from one to the other. With online deliveries getting faster than ever before, people from various corners of the world can get hold of their favourite piece of willow in record time.
Cricket researchers found that there is a high demand for live cricket telecast in the United States, as big as UK. The reason for this is there is a high number of Asian expatriates living in the US. The popularity of the game in US is on a all time high and even locals who play traditional American games like basketball and baseball are marveling cricket, particularly the T20 format. That is one reason why the ICC has decided to host a significant portion of 2024 Men’s T-20 World Cup in US. The final might have been there as well instead of West Indies, just to make a statement.
With women’s cricket also on the rise like never before the game is fast expanding going to areas that had never been reached before and demand for cricket bats has gone through the roof.
