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| Sunday, 5 September 2004 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Bat is a woman by A. C. de Silva Cricket is played throughout the world by men, women and children but the term 'King Willow' it appears is a misnomer. It really should be 'Queen Willow' because cricket bats are actually made of the wood of female willow trees. The wood from the male trees is inferior and unsuitable for bat-making.
Going down memory lane with some of the big names that illuminated the cricket field - Don Bradman liked a blade with a broad grain while Len Hutton preferred a narrow grain. Both used bats made from willow grown in Bungay, Suffolk. Indeed, the best willow trees grow in the adjoining counties of Essex and Suffolk, on the east coast of England. It is said that at one time Australian star Norman O'Neill used a bat made from a willow tree which had attained womanhood in Stratford-on-Avon while England's great Tom Graveney had two bats made from trees which matured by the River Severn in his own county Gloucestershire. Expertise There is a lot of thought and expertise that goes into the making of cricket bats. The wood that is taken to make cricket bats is at least 12 years old before it comes into contact with a ball. The growers usually purchase three-year-old trees from a nursery and then plant them in rich, loamy soil, generally close to a river or stream. These take about 10 years to mature before they are relled for bat-making. By then the main trunk of the tree is about 10 feet tall with a circumference of over 50 inches.The tree is felled, trimmed and cut into logs of suitable length. Then each log is split into sections with an axe. Such a tree will provide enough wood for two dozen bats. Each piece is graded for quality. Economical A 12 or 13-year-old trees has been found the most economical by commercial growers but timber from much older trees can be used. One such tree which was 100 feet high and 53 years old was cut down to provide wood for as many as 1,179 bats of good quality. But commercial growers want quick turnovers and cannot wait 50 years for their profits, particularly as these trees are susceptible to many kinds of diseases, chief among them being 'Schorched Leaf' and 'Watermark' which ruin the grain of the wood, and 'Bootlace Fungus' which attack the roots. The blade of a good bat must be of standard size, that is 22 1/2 inches to the shoulder and 4 1/4 inches in width. This size was laid down to prevent cheating. In the days before rules were made bats came in all shaped and sizes. In one of the earliest recorded matches, when money was bet on the results of games, a certain batsman by the name of White of Chertsey, used a bat nearly as wide as the stumps in a match against Hambledon. With this bat he blocked every ball he received successfully and Chertsey beat Hambledon easily and collected the side bet of 50 Sterling Pounds. The Hambledon players were naturally furious and insisted on restrictions on the width of all bats. Since then bats have been 4 1/4 inches wide. So now that it has been established that your bat is a lady, treat her with courtesy shown to the gentler sex. Clean her scrupulously, oil her sparingly, not when you get out to the middle, flay the ball with feline ferocity and she will demonstrate for all to see that you are indeed a worthy batsman to wield her well-shaped form. |
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The female wood of the tree is light in weight but tough and resilient.
It provides the fine grained timber which makes a well-tailored cricket
bat a thing of beauty. Botanists and willow-growers can tell the
difference between a male and female tree from a distance roughly
equivalent to the middle to the boundary. The flower of the male tree has
two or more stamens, the female flower has an ovary with stigmas.
