Caring for Your Bat

It is tedious, but the best thing you can do for your new bat is to knock it in carefully. We are outlining the optimum method for doing so to ensure maximum life and performance from your bat.

Cricket bats break! The quality of the bat you have purchased will be greatly enhanced by the initial care and treatment you give it. It is an irony of bat making that the better the performance of the willow the more likely it is to last a shorter time than a cheaper alternative. There are three essential ingredients to the manufacture of a top quality cricket bat:
 
1. The quality of the willow cleft from the supplier
2. The skill of the bat maker in combining this willow and the handle to produce a bat with excellent pick-up and balance.
3. The pressing of the willow.
Willow clefts are sold in different grades, principally on their cosmetics, number of grains and the straightness of those grains. Regardless of the grade all bats are made to Test match Standard and quite often some of the bats made from lower grade clefts outperform the top grade ones. The batmaker is the first to see the ‘face’ of the bat. He will then determine what grade the willow should be used for from experience and eye. Once graded, the willow is then mechanically pressed accordingly.
 

First, oil the bat. Don’t be tempted to use too much, little and often is the mantra here. Give the blade around a tablespoon of oil and always leave the bat horizontal after oiling, in a cool place. We recommend 4 coats over four days. Only oil the back once. Oil the toe if no protection is fitted, it will seal the bat against moisture. At no time during a bats life should it be exposed to heat, this will dry the blade, promoting cracking. Never leave near a heater. And the very worst thing, and lots of cricketers do it, is to leave the bat in the boot of the car during the summer. DON’T.

The key is to knock in the edges and toe well, harden these vulnerable areas whilst retaining the ‘ping’ in the middle, where you will want it. A bat mallet is best. Firstly, knock in edges very, very gently. Some models have quite sharp edges and these must be rounded very carefully all the way along both sides of the bat including the shoulders. Gently.

Likewise, the front edge of the toe. Once this is complete, start about an inch in from the edge and methodically make contact with the face gradually more firmly until you no longer can see the indent of the mallet on the blade when you strike it. Do this up and down both edges from an inch in to the edge. This effectively will have knocked your bat in and reduced potential damage without compromising on the blade’s performance. The middle should receive a gentle knocking in, as it will be subjected to force from the cricket ball on contact. A good indicator is to bounce a ball on, or play some gentle shots with the bat with an old, good quality cricket ball. If the seam of the ball can be seen on the blade, you are not finished!

Oil lightly roughly once every six weeks if natural face or replace extratec and re-oil your bat every six months if you are using extratec, and once before off season storage – store in a cool place! A garage is perfect for this purpose.

We recommend a toe guard, Shoe Goo or Hard toe for your bat. Toe guards now are completely unobtrusive and you will forget its there. It is a must to prevent dampness from the pitch soaking into the blade. Extratec sheets are a tough clear film applied to the face and edge of a bat and will help prevent damage to the blade from the cricket ball, and will bind the surface further protecting the edges without restricting the bat’s performance. Both items will go a long way to maximizing your bats life.