Every cricketer needs The Right Bat. It's his most trusted companion.
Traditionally carved from top-quality willow, famous bat-makers, source the bulk of their willow wood from Kashmir. The coveted English willow is also popular.
Bats are mainly made in the Indian subcontinent and there are premium batmakers, some with long histories, in England, Australia and New Zealand.
The British started growing willow trees in Kashmir for the purpose of making cricket bats in the 1880s and bats began to be made in Baramula, Pahalgam and Anantnag.
Cricket bats first appeared as early 1665.
Over the years bat-makers have experimented with a variety of materials to make bats, so as to increase their boundary scoring potential, from aluminium to bamboo to carbon polymers, until the Laws of Cricket decreed that bats could only be made from wood.
7 of the leading bat manufacturers and the places where their creations take shape.
1. MRF
Chennai-based MRF produces bats that have been seen in the hands of many an illustrious cricketer -- Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli among others. Instead of producing the blades itself, MRF entrusts specialist makers in India to create their pieces in workshops in Kashmir, Jalandhar and Meerut.
2. Kookaburra
Ricky Ponting, Brett Lee, Glenn Maxwell, Jos Buttler and others proudly wield(ed) Kookaburra bats.
A long-established brand (1890), from eastern Australia, named for the popular laughing Aussie bird, their bats, celebrated for their craftsmanship, are made in Moorabbin, Victoria, near Melbourne, with both English and Kashmiri willow.
They also make them in India since 2014.
3. Gray-Nicolls
The 1855-founded English sporting company, based in Robertsbridge, East Sussex, manufactures its bats across three regions: England, Australia and India.
Michael Atherton, Nasser Hussain, Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook were faithful to Gray-Nicolls at the crease. Ranjitsinhji also owned a Gray-Nicolls bat. So did Sunil Gavaskar.
Gray-Nicolls were responsible for inventing the scoop bat, which has a cavity/cavities in it.
4. SS or Sareen Sports
The Meerut, Uttar Pradesh bat, made since 1969, is a hot fave among cricketers, especially Indian ones.
Ajinkya Rahane, Kumar Sangakkara, Yuvraj Singh, Shikhar Dhawan, Nicholas Pooran, Jonny Bairstow, Quinton De Kock, Kieron Pollard, Tim David, Shai Hope have all batted with SS brand willow at one time or another.
M S Dhoni preferred a Reebok-branded SS bat.
5. SG or Sanspareils Greenlands
Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, K L Rahul use Sanspareils Greenlands blades. The 1931-established firm, begun by the Anand brothers, who learned the trade in their uncle's sports shop, started up in Sialkot and moved to Agra and then Meerut after Partition.
6. GM or Gunn & Moore
The Nottingham-located bat-making company was begun by English cricketer William Gunn in 1885. It crafts English willow bats at its factory, which according to the company, is made via one of the most state-of-the-art processes in the world
Steve Waugh, Ben Stokes, Graeme Smith, Stephen Fleming, Dawid Malan, Michael Vaughan, Quinton de Kock, Aiden Markram, Ross Taylor prefer GM bats
7. New Balance Bats
New Balance, an American company known worldwide for its footwear, has also carved out, more recently, a place among upper tier of cricket bat makers, manufacturing them in Ludhiana.
Cricket phenoms Steve Smith and Joe Root use New Balance bats with pride.