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[well past my peak]

sorry if already posted, a intersting read http://www.espncricinfo.com/blogs/content/story/1080665.html

[swark]

Hi all,

I am the author of the article on Cricinfo, and found this web-site through a quick search. Hopefully I didn't make too many errors in the piece - from having a quick read, I could have saved some time by doing research here first! The title certainly wasn't my idea ....

Anyway, a quick comment and request for input from the more knowledgeable:

- As with any article, I wrote substantially more than what was finally published. I probably drive my editor crazy by doing this, and they have to cut it back by about 50% to make it even vaguely readable. One of the main things that got edited out was a brief discussion around the differences between English willow grown in England, English willow grown elsewhere, and Kashmir willow. I had never come across the phrase "English Willow nurtured in India" until recently, and am left wondering whether anyone has ever really tried to objectively compare the performance of the three? There has been some work comparing English willow and Kashmir willow by Harsimranjeet Singh and Lloyd Smith from Washington State University, and Mohammad Saadatfar and colleagues at ANU in Australia, but I haven't seen much that also looked at the performance of English willow grown outside of England.

This is largely a question of academic interest to me now, but I may turn it into a follow-up article at some point. I would be really interested to hear anyone's experiences or thoughts on this.

[Buzz]

Hi @swark welcome to the forum. Only one challenge that I had and that is the old bats being made if heart wood, I think they were made from a different type of red willow a different strain of willow used before salix alba.

But I am splitting hairs, it is a wonderful article. I would have loved it to have kept going!

[edge]

@swark Welcome, enjoyed the article and definitely agree with Buzz, would have loved more!

Purely from anecdotal evidence I think English Willow nurtured in India is said to be inferior to 'proper' English willow, but as with most things cricket bats that's as likely an opinion influenced by tradition as much as anything else. Would certainly be interested to see a scientific comparison. To confuse things further there is also Willow Blue in Australia growing Salix Alba: http://www.willowblue.com.au/ It often seems like the amount of academic research into cricket in Australia is quite strong, so possibly some useful studies may have been done over there?

[swark]

@edge @Buzz Thanks for the welcome 

I agree with the thought that EWNI is perceived as being inferior, which naturally makes my contrary nature want to test that assumption out. Some studies have shown kashmir to be less 'responsive' than traditional English willow, but from memory it was only by a fairly negligible 1-2%.

I haven't seen anything that compares the various options, and, on thinking about it, there are so many variables that come into play (where each of the trees were grown, how old they were when cut, wind conditions and so on) that any test is going to be pretty meaningless. Still would like to try though ....

Are there any smaller bat makers in England that use traditional English willow, EWNI and Kashmir? I wonder if it would be possible to get three bats made up of each timber to similar dimensions and to then do a blind test as well as some more objective measures. The bigger bat makers probably wouldn't want to play along with this, but a smaller custom company may.

Cheers,

Stuart

[swark]

Hi @swarkOnly one challenge that I had and that is the old bats being made if heart wood, I think they were made from a different type of red willow a different strain of willow used before salix alba.

I'll see what I can find out. There is certainly reference to the heartwood being used, but equally it makes sense that different types of wood were being used before now traditional English willow became the default choice.

[JK Lewis]

Hi all,

I am the author of the article on Cricinfo, and found this web-site through a quick search. Hopefully I didn't make too many errors in the piece - from having a quick read, I could have saved some time by doing research here first! The title certainly wasn't my idea ....

Anyway, a quick comment and request for input from the more knowledgeable:

- As with any article, I wrote substantially more than what was finally published. I probably drive my editor crazy by doing this, and they have to cut it back by about 50% to make it even vaguely readable. One of the main things that got edited out was a brief discussion around the differences between English willow grown in England, English willow grown elsewhere, and Kashmir willow. I had never come across the phrase "English Willow nurtured in India" until recently, and am left wondering whether anyone has ever really tried to objectively compare the performance of the three? There has been some work comparing English willow and Kashmir willow by Harsimranjeet Singh and Lloyd Smith from Washington State University, and Mohammad Saadatfar and colleagues at ANU in Australia, but I haven't seen much that also looked at the performance of English willow grown outside of England.

This is largely a question of academic interest to me now, but I may turn it into a follow-up article at some point. I would be really interested to hear anyone's experiences or thoughts on this.

Hi Swark, I was wondering, could you post the whole article you wrote in here - would that be allowed by your editor? I think many forum members would be interested.

[swark]

Being inherently lazy, I am probably going to simply 'cut-and-paste' it into the follow-up article

Having said that, I will be looking at posting some ideas up over the next few weeks to get some feedback on, and would greatly value contributions from members such as yourself.

Cheers,

Stuart

[JK Lewis]

Write once, paid twice - I like it!  Look forward to reading more.