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[Tom]

[tim2000s]

That is not a flattering shot of the player in the background!

[The_Bird]

That is not a flattering shot of the player in the background!

Richard Levi?

[NathRobbo88]

Richard Levi?

Maybe his misses! 

[Wedge2408]

I saw this bat at Greg chappell cricket centre today when I was getting some new keeping inners.
Thought I'd take a couple of quick pics.
It is the new Puma Pulse.

[Gcricket]

Wow, never seen that bat and I live in Aus!

[Wedge2408]

Yeah, I think it is a pre-release model. They only had a couple in the store. It was advertised as 'the bat Matt Wade is using'.
I presume it will be Puma's flagship model for our next (2013/14) season.

[Vitas Cricket]

Interesting.

I'm hearing a few rumours among the cricket reps that Puma may be getting out of cricket. Apparently there is new man in charge who doesn't see cricket as a market puma should be involved in.

Combine this with their very iffy 2013 UK launch (basically extending the current range rather than releasing anything new) and the fact they are letting high profile players go left, right and centre and it all starts to paint a picture...

Thoughts?

[procricket]

Fragmented market massively and highly competitive this forum along with other little start up brands are simply fragmenting the market for me..

Never been a fan of puma always sceptical about all there kit bar the gloves if honest

[joeylough]

You look at Adidas and Puma as similar brands (started by brothers if I remember separated during WW1 I think). Anyway both really started in football.

Adidas went for cricket and so did puma. Puma arguably had the best bats, but they are more of a sports clothing brand. So who do they sponsor at international level? No one.

Adidas have England, SA, Aus so are able to stay in cricket by those sales along. They also have KP who markets himself. Puma had G Jones for the 2005 ashes, which I imagine helped sell a few orange gloves. But since then apart from Brendan Mac not held its own in the UK.

[Tom]

Would be a surprise if Puma left cricket totally. India is one of their fastest growing markets, and a pull out from selling cricket equipment would reduce the amount of endorsements and visibility over there.

In the UK though, wouldn't surprise me.

[tushar sehgal]

puma cricket site is now live too after many many many years of coming soon stage, i don't think they are going to pull out of cricket, atleast not in india..

[mickyp]

Read in the paper that they are struggling a bit, looking to ditch big sponsorship deals etc. It could well be that they decide that cricket isn't a core business line and shut it down. They don't seem to have any real top line players signed up who have global presence. Yes, they're fairly well represented in the IPL, but I think it's a bit shoddy to see their stickers plastered all over bats obviously from other companies (I know most pros just sticker up blanks made for them, but Puma seem to suffer more than most from this).

[Mortimer]

Puma recently announced their financial results for 2012 and they were dissapointing and they are cutting back on sponsorships in all sports.

The Puma / Adidas split came after WW2 not WW1

Of the two companies, Puma were the first to get really involved in cricket and have a full range of equipment, rather than just footwear. The big step for them was buying the Australian part of Millichamp and Hall. Adidas followed them into cricket much later.

[Pendles10]

Yeah its been disappointing by puma over the past few years, I've owned one puma and it was one of the best bats I've used (a Ballistic 3000), it had 9 ruler straight grains and big edges. But the recent stock hasn't been as good.