Bats and Bat Care

Bats and Bat Care

We probably get more questions about this than anything else so we hope you find this advice useful.
Cricket bats can be very cheap (less than £10) or very expensive (in excess of £200) and to a large extent you get what you pay for.  We do not recommend particular makes because buying a bat is a very personal decision and budget is also an important consideration.  However we want to help you make the right the choice. 

Very cheap budget bats tend to be quite ‘dead’ when used against a hard ball, they can also be quite heavy and the blades can be fairly thin.  They are prone to splitting and cracking and will probably not result in a good experience for your child.  OK for a bit of garden or beach cricket, but not much else and best avoided. We provide better bats from the club stock of junior bats for use during coaching and matches so we would generally advise against a bat costing less than around £20 on average (unless you are buying second hand of course).

A budget starting at around £20 gets you a fair quality entry level junior bat, not the best quality willow but good enough to provide some feel and encourage good shot making.

Thereafter you are paying, in some cases for a brand name, but also for better quality willow and superior craftmanship. 

If you do buy a bat – insist that your child learns to prepare it and care for it properly.  There is plenty of advice here on how to do it.