The story behind Morrant pads is even amazing.
The Amazing Story of the Morrant Ultralite Cricket Pad
In searching the cricket world for the absolutely best cricket gear available Middlepeg has come across a quite a few classic cricket yarns. The Morrant Ultralite Pad is one such story.
A long time ago we noticed and were always interested in a unique looking cricket pad that Sunil Gavaskar used to wear. Unique because they had a totally different look about them. Efforts to find out more about this cricket pad all lead to nothing and the "Sunil Gavaskar" cricket pad mystery ended up laying dormant for many years.
Dormant that is until a young batsman by the name Sachin Tendulkar came along and wore the same style of cricket pad. Efforts were once again made to find the source of this pad and this process was helped along by Zak Parker from the Wanneroo Cricket Club in Western Australia who informed us that the cricket pad was in fact made by Morrant sports who are based in the UK.
To finally discover the full story about this cricket pad Middlepeg recently had a meeting in the UK with the director and owner of Morrant sports Mr Dilip Jajodia. Our thanks must go out to Mr Jajodia for both his help and consideration during our time with him.
Though you could probably write a small book about this story here is an abridged version.
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The Morrant Ultralite cricket pad began its life back in the early 70's. A certain Mr Lewis of England had a lifelong passion to design a super light and supremely comfortable cricket pad.
Mr Lewis invested much time and money in designing this cricket pad but the procedure to make this pad took considerable time, money and the building of a very specially engineered press machine to press the main body of the pad.
A few samples of these cricket pads were made and tried and whilst there was huge demand from international cricketers for further samples to be made no bulk quantities of the cricket pad were made at that stage.
The cricketing companies of the world baulked at the cost of making this cricket pad as they could just continue with the current line of pads and make much greater margins. So Mr Lewis' dream of his super cricket pad gradually eroded and it laid dormant for almost 10 years… until the following.
Amazingly whilst casually looking around at an industrial fair in Germany no less, Mr. Dilip Jajodia came across what looked like a cricket pad. It was however painted "red" and uniquely shaped. Mr Jajodia asked the stallholder ( a specialised German industrial foam manufacturer ) about the pad and discovered that many years ago a Mr RH Lewis from England approached them because they were the only company in the world that could manufacture this super light highly specialised foam. Now this company had not even heard of cricket but they agreed to supply Mr Lewis with a small quantity of this foam for his dream cricket pad. - which in itself was unusual because this was a massive german industrial manufacturer that only and normally deal in very large quantities of foam.
After expressing his interest in this cricket pad the Germans gave Dilip a contact for this "Mr Lewis " in England but said their last contact with him was some 10 years ago so he was unlikely to still be at that address.
Now it's also worth mentioning at this stage that this German Manufacturer only displays that cricket pad to add a little colour to their industrial displays so the fact that it is even on display is amazing. On his return to England Diilp was fortunate to track down Mr Lewis and after much discussion the dream of his Ultralite cricket pad was reignited.
It turned out that the same German foam manufacturer were still the only ones able to supply the foam and eventually only supplied it as a favour to Mr Lewis because of his dealings with them some 10 years earlier.
To give you some insight into the production process of this cricket pad the foam as we know it comes from Germany. The special exterior and finish is made in Ireland and it is put together in England but all of this is only possible to do with the use of Mr Lewis' specially engineered press machine.
So the Ultralite dream was reignited and small numbers of the cricket pad were made with demand always outstripping supply ( as is still the case today ). Sunil Gavaskar and a host of other international cricketers used them and swore that they would never use anything else. Sunil also gave Sachin Tendulkar an old pair of his Ultralite cricket pads when Sachin was a school boy cricketer and ever since ( and despite massive offers ) Sachin has never worn anything else other than the Morrant Ultralite cricket pad (and Sachin is not paid to use the Ultralite Cricket Pads either).
All was going along well until one day Dilip received a phone call saying Mr Lewis had passed away and there was a letter for him. Dilip later discovered that Mr Lewis had left him the special engineering press machine and all rights to the Ultralite cricket pad to him because in Mr Lewis's words 'Dilip had ensured his dream came to fruition' .
Today Dilip is proud to be a part of this amazing story especially because one mans dream was fulfilled and is able to live forever.
Over the years Dilip has had offers from the biggest names in cricket to sell the rights to this machine needed to make the Ultralite cricket pad ( the only machine of it's kind in the world ) but all offers have fallen on deaf ears.
And today demand still outstrips supply due to the extensive process involved in the production and construction of the Morrant Ultralite cricket pad.
There is not a better and lighter cricket pad in the world full stop and whilst the pad does cost more than the average cricket pad Dilip rightly points out that this pad also lasts up to 4 times the average life of a cricket pad (indeed Gavaskar was said to have worn the same pair for many years). 'This pad has an extremely long lifespan… some of my customers are still using the same cricket pad after 8 years of regular use' Dilip has stated.
When we first picked up these cricket pads we literally could not believe how light they were. We have weighed virtually every pad in the world and nothing even comes close to the Morrant Ultralite cricket pad.
This cricket pad also has a special anti bounce foam construction which reduces the amount of ball rebound off the pad as well.
Today the cricket pad is worn by a host of international cricketers and the only reason it is not worn by every international is because of their contractual obligations with other companies. Today cricketers are paid substantial sums of money to use a companies range of equipment and whilst it is possible to change stickers on a bat it is impossible to do this with the Morrant Ultralite cricket pad (due to its very unique styling ).
http://www.middlepeg.com/ultralitecricketpads.htm#Amazing%20Story
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