I play a bit of golf, very occasionally these days, and would never classify myself as better than moderately average. During my time as a regular, I made use of a fair bit of the most up to date technology available, as allowed by golf's arbiters, the R & A, the equivalent of cricket's MCC. Every year equipment manufacturers push the boundaries with new clubs, new materials, new dimple patterns on the balls, new grooves etc. All with a view to getting the gullible hacker to spend more to make them a better golfer. New equipment comes under scrutiny every year.
Cricket, on the other hand, rarely has such equipment controversies. The dimensions of bats and balls are clearly laid down in the laws, as are the materials of which they are to be constructed. The idea has always been to try to keep a fair contest between bat and ball and to ensure the relative skills of the players is what wins the contest. Sometimes there are controversies that lead to clarifications.
The biggest in my time was when Denis Lillee walked out to bat with an Aluminium bat against England in a Test against England in Australia. After heated discussion he was made to use a traditional bat but it lead to a change in the wording of the laws to confirm that the blade should be made of wood. Later, innovations have been tried by Kookaburra and Hunts County which have added or inserted other materials. The law not states "solely of wood". There is also confirmation that the dimensions are inclusive of blade and handle together.
But the handle is a different matter. Traditionally, the handle has been of cane, sprung with rubber inserts, bound with twine and covered with a rubber grip. Newberry pushed the boundaries by putting a counter weight in one end, effectively lightening the pick-up. A few years ago the went further and tried something completely different, with a carbon fibre handle that allowed a shorter splice and lighter, more flexible handle. The MCC banned it and decided to keep the tradition of cane handles.
This might make the MCC seem like dinosaurs but I like the way the MCC want to keep a rein on technology in order to keep the balance between bat and ball as much as possible. Bat technology has improved over the years, with more wood going into bats that pick up like a feather. The wood is not pressed as much and a "trampoline effect" (comparable to golf drivers) increases. It's legal and I wish I had the benefit of it 20 years ago. What the bats don't do (like the golf technology) is give you the technique to play good bowling.
This brings me to possibly the most innovative recent change within the laws and the spirit of the laws. Mongoose. Everyone in cricket will have heard of the Mongoose bat, launched in a blaze of publicity two years ago, it has a really long handle and really short blade, which is packed with willow. Unfortunately it suffered a bit from being launched around the perception of the T20 slogfest which meant that the technology behind the bat got lost in the mood of "hit it as hard as you can". In fact the technology involved, including the longer handle, allows you to get greater bat speed without having to swing any harder. In this respect, it's not dissimilar to some golf club technology.
Personally I still cannot get my head around how you can use a bat with a tiny blade to play a quick bowler on a bouncy pitch as the ball arrows in at your chest. However the concept of a longer, whippier blade does make sense and in addition to the original MMi3 Mongoos also make a more traditional looking bat, the CoR3, with slightly longer handle and slightly shorter blade and have now gone totally conventional as well.
If you think about it, a long, whippy handle is bound to give you more bat speed and I have often heard club cricketers talk of how much they like playing with a bat just as the handle is starting to split. As for making the handle longer, think of Adam Gilchrist and how high on the handle he held the bat, which helped him get incredible bat speed and hit it miles.
At the end of it all though, if your technique cannot cope with the bowling, all the bat technology in the world won't help. So whatever bat you're going to be using, you need to have a technique that works. Get practising and perhaps I can help.
