So England have just hammered Australia to all parts of the country in recent times. All this with the reduced size of bats that was supposed to have the complete opposite effect.
When the MCC released their study “Balance of The Game” (
https://www.lords.org/assets/Uploads/Balance-of-the-Game-Paper-V9.pdf) in May 2016 a number of seasoned cricket bat manufacturers contacted the committee to express a combination of relief and concern. Relief that we didn’t have to try and make the biggest bats on the planet to satisfy fashion at the expense of performance, and concern that the size of a cricket bat was not the primary reason as the why records were being broken. Fitter players, much smaller boundaries, different preparation and new techniques (Jos Buttler e.g.) were ahead of bat size in our opinion and the opinion of some of the batmaking professionals we consulted.
We ( and the other manufacturers) tried very hard to share this with MCC and they would have none of it. Bats for today’s professional batsmen are made using different techniques (not technology, but technique) that are improving rapidly. As a sidenote we woud love to make these available to the general public but our experience is that the non professional has an issue wih the maintenance involved with the upkeep of these bats, no matter how good the performance.
My business partner submitted a reply to the committee outlining all of our concerns ( shared by at least one of the big 3 Indian manufacturers) including that we supported the new gauge but we don’t believe it will have the desired effect. The answer was “ we have an ex County player on the committee who disagrees with you. He believes records are being broken because of he size of the bats. And we believe him.”
My partner is also an ex County player, a female and a master batmaker with 25 years making cricket bats for some of the best players in the world.
No word yet from the MCC on a review..... of the review. Makes me wonder what they will choose to review next.
What do you guys think ?