India is home to a number of the top cricket-bat manufacturers, including Sareen Sports, SS. But the wood used to make the highest-quality bats needs to be shipped halfway across the globe from England. JS Wright & Sons, an English willow tree supplier that has been in the industry since the 1800s, supplies 75% of the willow for the world's cricket bats. English willow bats are durable, yet lightweight and sell for up to 10 times as much as cheaper, lower-end Kashmir willow bats. Growing these trees and using them to create a perfect bat is a more than 15-year-long process that requires a careful eye and years of experience. The trees need to be regularly inspected and maintained so they grow slowly and produce a clean, tight-grained cleft. But the best trees could be in short supply as the sport spreads into more countries, like the United States.
Editor's Note: At 2:30, the video incorrectly states that an English willow tree is ready to be cut down when it is 60 inches in diameter. It should say 60 inches in circumference.
Editor's Note: At 2:30, the video incorrectly states that an English willow tree is ready to be cut down when it is 60 inches in diameter. It should say 60 inches in circumference.
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00:00If all goes according to plan, this wood will be cut, shaped and scraped into one of the
00:11most expensive cricket bats.
00:15And while making a high-end bat is labour intensive, the real reason they cost so much?
00:22English willow.
00:24English willow bats are considered the cream of the crop, associated with star players
00:29like India's Surya Kumar Yadav and MS Dhoni.
00:34No professional player will use anything but English willow.
00:37The highest bats nowadays go for even up to $1,000.
00:42That's why police in India have cracked down on counterfeiters trying to pass off bats
00:47made with less desirable wood.
00:51So why are English willow bats the top choice for pro cricketers?
00:55And why are they so expensive?
01:09The bat he's holding is called the Gunther.
01:12It's English willow and it costs around $1,000.
01:21The grains, the ping, the shape.
01:24But developing the best quality wood takes a long time and a lot can go wrong.
01:30The perfect tree for a cricket bat grows straight and slow, resulting in many grains close together
01:36in the wood.
01:37A tree that grows fast, on the other hand, will have fewer grains further apart.
01:43A bat made from wood that grows too fast will be lighter and softer and it typically needs
01:49to be knocked in or played with a lot to harden it.
01:55The harder the bat, the further players can hit the ball.
01:59Most pro cricket players prefer tight-grained bats since more compact wood offers high performance
02:04from the start.
02:08The process begins halfway around the world, in a forest in England.
02:13Oliver Wright spends most of his time outside inspecting trees for JS Wright.
02:24The company supplies the wood for about 75% of the world's English willow cricket bats.
02:30An English willow tree is ready to be cut down when it reaches 60 inches in diameter,
02:37which takes an average of 15 years.
02:41So roughly, if you were to hug the tree, if you can just about touch your fingers, depending
02:46on how long your arms are, then it's near enough ready.
02:50Side shoots need to be trimmed twice a year to prevent knots from appearing in the wood.
02:56There's also the risk of a tree rotting from within if it gets too much water.
03:01And pests and diseases can ruin the bark.
03:05You can see how all the bark's coming off.
03:09Dead.
03:12Once the trees reach the sawmill, the goal is to carve as many bats as possible from
03:17each one.
03:19This starts with cross-cutting the logs into 28-inch pieces with a chainsaw.
03:24Then splitting these pieces into small slices called clefts.
03:35Each cleft will become a cricket bat.
03:41It all depends on how it looks inside the tree.
03:43If it's rotten, we'll get slightly less.
03:45If it's nice and clean, we'll get slightly more.
03:48Average tree is about 40, about 40 bats per tree.
03:52The record here is about 700 out of one tree, and it was a huge tree, yeah, a huge tree.
03:58Jeremy Ruggles is a director at JS Wright.
04:01He's been with the company since he was 18.
04:03No, I'm not very good at cricket, no.
04:06I love watching it, but I'm no good at playing it.
04:09You have to split them this way, so the grain goes through the bat to give it the strength.
04:14The grain can't go across the bat, it has to go from front to back, which is why it's
04:19split like cutting a cake.
04:22At this stage, workers note any damage to the wood that might affect how it's graded
04:27later on.
04:28So this is damage.
04:29This has been hit, struck by lightning or hit by something, hit by a tractor or it stopped
04:34growing for a year, then started again.
04:36And you can see this is a good quality one, there's no damage or anything in it.
04:39It's a little bit of red wood, which is good.
04:42One of the most important steps of the process is identifying what's known as the face of
04:47the cleft.
04:49This will be the part of the bat that strikes the ball, and the part the buyer focuses on
04:54in the shop.
04:55It's looking which is going to be the prettiest, which side has the least amount of colour,
05:00the straightest grain is what you want, less colour and no knots.
05:04So whichever side looks nicer, that is the side the face is made.
05:08Once the face is decided and sawn, you can't change your mind.
05:12Both of the ends are then covered in a special petroleum-based wax.
05:18It's about 10mm on, just to reduce the splitting.
05:24The quality of a cricket bat isn't based on just the type of wood, but also its grade.
05:31At JS Wright, grades range from 1 to 20, with 1 being the best.
05:39Bruce Arthie is doing the initial grading.
05:42He's been working with JS Wright for 48 years.
05:46So this is how we're grading, we take the bat off there, we crush the back of it, we'd
05:51look at the grain of the bat like that, and these are quite nice straight grains.
05:57They're quite uniform, there's not a lot, much colour down the side.
06:02So I would put that into a 2, because it's just got a couple of little blemishes on the
06:06back like that, so that would make a 2, in my opinion.
06:11The sorted clefts are stacked and dried in both the open air and a kiln, to remove any moisture.
06:20You can't rush this process, if you rush it, you get splits and you get heavy clefts.
06:28So this one in my left hand is a younger tree, but it's still beautiful, straight, no blemishes.
06:35One in my right hand is an older tree, with more grains.
06:38This is what professional players like, the narrow grains, but it won't last as long as
06:43the younger tree with the wider grains.
06:46JS Wright ships its processed and graded clefts all over the world.
06:52It's been supplying Serene Sports in India for about 50 years.
06:57I've known Jatin Serene since he was a young lad.
07:00Hopefully I'll be dealing with his son one day.
07:04Serene Sports makes 500 to 800 bats each day with the clefts it receives from JS Wright.
07:14One bat takes 24 to 36 hours from start to finish, and will touch 8 or 9 different hands.
07:24The process starts with smoothing out the clefts and cutting them down to size.
07:31A V-shape is also cut into one end with a band saw.
07:36This is where the handle will go.
07:43While the base of the bat is made from English willow, the handle is made from cane
07:47that Serene Sports imports from India.
07:50Each piece of cane has layers of rubber inside for shock absorption.
07:58The cane is smoothed down and then inserted into the V.
08:21Each handle is glued in place, and it takes about 16 hours to dry.
08:28Workers use tools like a planer and an adze to carve the bat's basic shape and make it more lightweight.
08:39A cricket bat is flat on the face and curved at the back.
08:43It's typically thicker towards the centre, or the sweet spot where it's most comfortable.
08:50The bat will make contact with the ball.
08:53The face of the bat also needs to be compressed, since the English willow is so soft in its raw form.
09:00Each bat goes through a mechanical process like this one, which compacts and hardens the wood grain.
09:07Jeremy says this is one of the most important stages for ensuring the bat performs as expected.
09:13If you didn't compress it at all, the ball would hardly go anywhere when you hit the ball with the bat.
09:18The ball has to be compressed, and every bat maker does it their own way.
09:24Finally, workers finish the handle by tightly winding a string around it and gluing a rubber grip on top.
09:33The bats are then sanded and polished.
09:37In this section, you can have a look. These are the ready-finished bats. The bats are ready now to go.
09:44High-end, serene sports English willow bats can sell for over $1,000.
09:50And as with many other expensive products, fakes are a problem.
09:55Counterfeiters often use cheaper wood like Indian Kashmir willow and try to pass it off as English willow.
10:02Kashmir willow is heavier than English willow, and typically more yellowish-brown in colour.
10:08But police in India have been cracking down on illicit operations involving counterfeit bats over the past few years.
10:16There are a lot of many people who will sell a Kashmir willow bat with an English willow sticker.
10:20That's a totally criminal act what they are doing. They are trying to make fool of the customers.
10:25Jatin says the best way to make sure you're getting a legit bat is by buying from a certified dealer.
10:31But despite the risk of fakes, Jatin says business is booming.
10:37And demand is increasing worldwide as cricket expands.
10:42I've seen the cricket community grow in America. Now it's really starting to flourish.
10:47And demand is increasing worldwide as cricket expands.
11:03I've seen the cricket community grow in America.
11:06Now it's really starting to flourish.
11:11It's a huge amateur community and now it's starting to get professionalized.
11:15In 2024, the T20 Cricket World Cup is being played in the USA for the first time ever.
11:23And a new professional league called Major League Cricket held its first season in 2023.
11:32Sheikh has been playing cricket for 16 years, so he knows what the perfect bat looks and feels like.
11:41Right now people buy a lot of bats online, which is like going on a blind date.
11:45You really don't know what you're going to get, even though the brands try to promise a certain type of quality.
11:50He says there are two ways to judge a bat. Pick up and ping.
11:56Pick up is the feel of it in your hands and getting a sense of the weight.
12:01You see I'm constantly using my wrist and my forearm.
12:04So if a bat is too heavy or unbalanced, it just tires you out.
12:08And then there's the ping test.
12:11The sound that Jatin was listening for, that most cricket pros know well.
12:17A good English willow, when you hit it off the sweet spot, will make a beautiful sound.
12:24It's like that sound that you hear, that you know you hit the best part of the bat.
12:28Like that's my sweet spot. That's why it's called the sweet spot.
12:31But perhaps more than anything, cricket players look at aesthetics.
12:35What makes a good bat, a high-grade English willow bat, is the cleanliness of it.
12:40There's no stains, it's just the lines are straight.
12:43Especially in the sweet spot, so where the thickness of the bat is,
12:47you want the grain to be as clean as possible in that area.
12:50But while these tightly grained, pricey English willow bats might be the most coveted by the pros,
12:57the trees that make these bats could soon be in short supply.
13:00According to Jeremy, quality trees are becoming rarer,
13:04since they're growing faster with increasingly warm temperatures.
13:08We're getting a longer growing season, so it's growing right up until probably November now.
13:13So it's growing more, so it's growing wider grains.
13:16But he says wider grain bats aren't necessarily worse,
13:20they might just require a bit more use before they're on the same level of play.
13:25You ask me, what's the difference?
13:27They're on the same level of play.
13:30You ask a player, he'll say, yes, the narrow grain one hits the ball better,
13:34but we've had tests done with bat makers making bats from wide grain,
13:37the ping is the same, it's all in the player's head.
13:40Some people always want the best, don't they?
13:42It's like motor cars, isn't it? You've got your Rolls Royce and you've got your Fords.
13:45It's the way it goes in life.