Cricket bats once deemed illegal for adult amateur players will be permitted under major changes to the Laws of Cricket, approved by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), starting in October. In one of the most significant changes to the Laws of the Game in decades and days out from the T20 World Cup in India, the MCC will legalise laminated multi-piece bats, a decision they said is in direct response to the tightening supply of English willow and the rapidly rising cost of cricket bats.
Wood Central understands that the decision is one of 73 made by the game’s custodians yesterday, and will see the approval of a special Type D laminated bat, which until now has been restricted to junior cricket, for adult amateur use. Unlike traditional single-piece bats (Types A, B, and C), which are all made from high-grade English willow, laminated bats use up to three pieces of wood, not all from willow, allowing bat manufacturers to stretch the limited resource much further.
The MCC said the change was designed to slow the rising cost of bats worldwide, with lamination allowing more of each tree to be used and lower-grade timber to be bonded behind a premium face, a move that has been wholly supported from some of the world’sleading bat-makers, including Grey-Nicolls, the second-largest manufacturer, which has argued that lamination is essential to reduce waste, given current practices only yield up to 40 bats from a single piece of willow.
“Lamination is great, and demystifying what it is and does is important. There is a lot of stuff said about cricket bats that does not really ring true. Saying a laminate bat is better because it is three bits of wood put together? Actually, the more important thing is that you are using up three bits of wood that you otherwise would not have used.”
Grey-Nicolls bat-maker Alex Hohenkerk, who spoke to The Indepedent about the new Laws of the Game yesterday.
And concerns that lamination might affect performance have also been quashed by extensive testing. Speaking to BBC Sport, Fraser Stewart, the MCC’s Laws Manager, said any difference in willows would be “marginal at best,” with elite cricketers continuing to rely on single-piece willow. “If anything can be done for the lower levels of the sport that will help make it more affordable without changing the dynamics of the game, then it is a sensible move,” he said.
Dwindling supplies of willow have seen prices skyrocket for cricket bats
English willow, prized for its low density and shock-absorbing qualities, has become increasingly scarce, with demand rising in South Asia, where top-end bat prices have tripled following the 2023 Cricket World Cup. Now, some premium models are retailing cricket bats for upwards of £1,000, a price point the MCC says risks pushing players out of the game, prompting the body to explore even more radical alternatives, such as bamboo, which was the subject of a groundbreaking 2021 study at the University of Cambridge.
In late 2023, Wood Central reported that the world’s timber species used to manufacture cricket bats, Kashmir willow, is also at risk of running out after manufacturers warned that decades of over-extraction, combined with a shift toward fast-growing poplar for India’s booming plywood industry, have left willow forests depleted and fragmented.
“It’s a case of culling all the time and no sowing,” according to Irfan Ali Shah, a senior official at Kashmir’s forest service who spoke to Al Jazeera in the lead-up to the 2023 Cricket World Cup. “We have started searching far-off corners of the valley, but there is not much good willow to be found anywhere for making the best quality bats,” said Fawzul Kabiir, whose GR8 bats are International Cricket Council-approved and sold worldwide.
In recent years, Kashmir willow has emerged as an increasingly popular alternative to English willow for amateur, semi-professional, and even professional players, with English bats 5 to 10 times more expensive than their Kashmiri equivalents. “Kashmir willow bat prices are 1/5th and 1/10th of their (English willow bat) prices,” Kabiir said. “An English willow, which costs around Indian Rupees 80,000, is equivalent to a Kashmir willow bat costing between Indian Rupees 2,000 and Rs 5,000 only.”
- To learn why the University of Cambridge is behind a study that is looking beyond English and Kashmir willow in cricket bats, click here to read Wood Central’s 2024 special feature.
