{"id":96985,"date":"2025-08-26T11:16:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T11:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/96985\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T11:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T11:16:11","slug":"revealed-cricket-is-running-out-of-bats-heres-why-the-ipl-climate-change-and-expensive-trees-are-all-to-blame-as-we-take-you-inside-the-race-against-time-to-save-the-sport-from-an-existential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/96985\/","title":{"rendered":"Revealed: Cricket is running out of BATS – here’s why the IPL, climate change and expensive trees are all to blame… as we take you inside the race against time to save the sport from an existential crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recurrent grumble during the recent England\u2013India series concerned the state of the Dukes ball, with fingers pointed in every direction \u2013 including at the Aberdeen Angus cows who supply the leather. But behind the scenes, another equipment-related headache has been raging. And they\u2019re calling it the \u2018cricket bat emergency\u2019.<\/p>\n

In a nutshell: there aren\u2019t enough trees. Or at least there aren\u2019t enough trees of the kind needed to make cricket bats.<\/p>\n

English willow has always been the sport\u2019s wood of choice. Kashmir has a huge willow market, producing around two millions bat clefts a year, but the quality is variable; so does Serbia, believe it or not, though only 100,000 clefts a year, and again the quality is unreliable. Poplar, the next-best alternative, has been tried, and there have even been experiments with bamboo, but they did not go well.<\/p>\n

To complicate matters, the willow has to be grown in the UK. When cuttings were sent to Australia<\/a>, the wood grew too quickly, which made it brittle. When they were sent to New Zealand, the trees were damaged by the wind, which will come as no surprise to anyone who has covered a Test match in Wellington. All told, then, English willow \u2013 salix alba caerulea to its mates \u2013 is where it\u2019s at.<\/p>\n

Like money, however, willow doesn\u2019t grow on trees: it is the tree. And those trees are struggling to keep pace with a demand for high-quality bats that has exploded, especially since the end of the pandemic, and especially on the subcontinent, where the sport\u2019s economy continues to boom beyond the capitalists\u2019 wildest dreams.<\/p>\n

The repercussions have been inevitable: with supply chains unable to balance the equation, prices have shot up. A good bat might now set you back the best part of \u00a31,000, which is a blow to cricket\u2019s attempts to shake off old accusations about elitism. And that\u2019s before you factor in the cost of pads, helmets, gloves and the rest.<\/p>\n

\"There <\/p>\n

There are not enough trees of the right quality to keep up with the demand for new bats (pictured: Ben Stokes throws his broken bat to England team-mate Jonny Bairstow)<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A Kashmiri willow bat manufacturer prepares a raft of bats – but the quality is far more variable than English willow, which is dwindling in availability<\/p>\n

\"Franchise <\/p>\n

Franchise cricket has exploded in recent years and every player needs new bats – not least Grace Harris, pictured here breaking her bat for Brisbane Heat against Perth Scorchers<\/p>\n

The economics of willow growth sounds like one of the more obscure specialist subjects on Mastermind, but it helps explain why the sport \u2013 led by MCC \u2013 is now exploring other means of producing bats good enough to survive everything thrown at them.<\/p>\n

JS Wright & Sons, who have led the industry ever since WG Grace approached Jessie Samuel Wright in 1894 to request a supply of willow, say their trees take between 12 and 20 years to reach maturity and be ready to become bats.<\/p>\n

The trouble is no one accounted for the post-IPL boom in India, which meant the quantity of willow planted back is insufficient to meet modern needs. As Rob Lynch, MCC\u2019s director of cricket operations, put it during the recent World Cricket Connects conference at Lord\u2019s: \u2018The situation is becoming unsustainable.\u2019<\/p>\n

JS Wright, who claim to produce three-quarters of the world\u2019s English willow bats, planted around 15,000 trees 20 years ago, and have now upped that figure to more than 40,000. One tree, well tended, can produce 40 bat clefts, and the company are assiduous about replacing every felled tree with three or four new ones. This year, they have produced 700,000 clefts.<\/p>\n

But even sustainable planning in the here and now leaves an issue in the short- to medium-term. \u2018Not enough competitors have planted enough trees,\u2019 said Jeremy Ruggles, a director at JS Wright for over 30 years.<\/p>\n

The problem starts at the top, with the best players now getting through bats at a rate once considered unthinkable \u2013 three a year has become more like 15 or 20. And with ever more Indian stars now signing bat sponsorship deals worth around $1m (\u00a3740,000), the companies have to claw their money back somewhere.<\/p>\n

Players train more, too, and \u2013 thanks to the IPL and other T20 franchise tournaments, which seem to be growing rather faster than salix alba \u2013 hit the ball more ferociously. They also train more regularly against the harder new ball. All this adds to wear and tear. Tree prices, meanwhile, are said to have trebled since 2017.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s climate change, which has meant milder winters in the UK and accelerated tree growth. Things get a little technical here, but essentially fast growth leads to wider grains, and that in turn produces bats which require longer to knock in. Pros, inevitably, prefer the ready-to-go narrower-grain bats.<\/p>\n

\"Alastair <\/p>\n

Alastair Cook, then England captain, takes Daily Mail Sport inside the Gray-Nicolls factory in Kent in 2013<\/p>\n

\"Bamboo <\/p>\n

Bamboo has been tried in the past, but it grows so quickly that it does not meet the required standard<\/p>\n

What to do, then, while the willow-growing industry catches up with demand, and attempts to keep at bay a crisis that could make cricket accessible only to those who can afford it?<\/p>\n

One alternative is laminated bats, pieced together from two or three pieces of wood, with an English willow face backed by lower-grade wood. These bats are already allowed in junior cricket, but remain illegal in the professional game, where there are concerns over the small advantage they provide the batsman – a lighter pick-up with more power.<\/p>\n

There is also the possibility that manufacturers might hide other performance-enhancing material between the bits of wood, such as high-density foam. Short of sawing bats in two to verify their authenticity, this would be hard to police.<\/p>\n

Non-wooden material remains up for discussion, too, though the sport has never quite got over the controversy caused by the aluminium bat used by Dennis Lillee during a Test against England at Perth in 1979.<\/p>\n

And while some kind of metal would ease the strain on the willow industry, and make the game more affordable, it might also take cricket down a path it is reluctant to explore: as bowlers keep telling us, bats are already powerful enough.<\/p>\n

Whatever happens next, and assuming the likes of JS Wright & Sons overcome the crisis, may depend on how successfully the sport can unite its disparate strands and produce an over-arching solution.<\/p>\n

MCC, whose excellent work in the background has a habit of being overlooked, want to host an industry-wide conference in the next few months to explore options.<\/p>\n

The crisis can be averted. But it is far from over.<\/p>\n

\"Some <\/p>\n

Some form of metal would ease the problem – but will cricket ever allow that after Dennis Lillee’s infamous aluminium bat (white helmet, centre) in the 1979 Ashes Test at Perth?<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The race is on to be able to save cricket from an existential crisis<\/p>\n

Slowly but surely, India is taking over English cricket\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ECB have always insisted that the sale of the Hundred teams would not be an IPL takeover by another name.<\/p>\n

But the news that Oval Invincibles, plaything of Mumbai\u2019s mega-wealthy Ambani family, may be renamed MI London would bring it into line with the family\u2019s other T20 franchises: with the IPL\u2019s Mumbai Indians their spiritual daddy, these are MI Cape Town, MI Emirates and MI New York.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Manchester Originals are expected to be renamed Manchester Super Giants, after RPSG Group \u2013 owners of the IPL\u2019s Lucknow Super Giants \u2013 brought a 70 per cent stake.<\/p>\n

And there is talk of Northern Superchargers incorporating \u2018Sunrisers\u2019 into their name, after the entire franchise was sold to Sun Group, owners of Sunrisers Hyderabad.<\/p>\n

One step at a time, the Indian influence on the English summer grows stronger. It will be fascinating to see how much longer the ECB deny this.<\/p>\n

\"Manchester <\/p>\n

Manchester Originals v Oval Invincibles is about to become Manchester Super Giants v MI London thanks to Indian owners<\/p>\n

Pujara was one of a kind\u00a0<\/p>\n

For all the talk of Bazball ahead of this winter\u2019s Ashes, there is another way to thrive in Australia.<\/p>\n

Just ask India\u2019s Cheteshwar Pujara, who retired from all forms of the game last week but was best remembered for his guts and watertight defence in Test cricket.<\/p>\n

It led him to 19 centuries and 7,195 runs in the longest format, and never was his style on better display than during India\u2019s 2\u20131 win Down Under in 2018-19, when in seven innings he faced (perhaps \u2018faced down\u2019 would be better) 1,258 deliveries, and put so many overs into the Australian bowlers\u2019 legs that his team-mates found runs a little easier to come by.<\/p>\n

Pujara\u2019s strike rate of 44 felt like an anachronism, but that wasn\u2019t the point. We\u2019ll miss him.<\/p>\n

\"Cheteshwar <\/p>\n

Cheteshwar Pujara – pictured after being dismissed for 193 at Sydney in 2019 – is hanging up his boots after a masterful career<\/p>\n

Will Cox get the call?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Different formats and all that, but might Jordan Cox be making an Ashes case for himself via the Hundred?<\/p>\n

His 327 runs for Oval Invincibles make him the tournament\u2019s leading run-scorer by a distance, and his strike rate of 178 is a reminder of his ferocious talent.<\/p>\n

England have certainly made stranger choices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A recurrent grumble during the recent England\u2013India series concerned the state of the Dukes ball, with fingers pointed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,15060,740,100,1208,2133,1209,15059,588,85],"class_list":["post-96985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-dailymail","tag-england","tag-england-cricket","tag-india","tag-india-cricket","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}