Bats, a love story 

The Gray Nicholls Scoop is 50 years old this year.  I never got them. How could you take a piece out of the back of a bat and expect it to work? Enda had a Scoop. It was a plank. Bryan McDermott probably still has it and I bet it's still a plank. Back in the 80s it was different from anything the game had seen from when the modern game had evolved. It was fashionable for a while and now it's back. Fair dues to Gray Nicholls marketing department 

The first bat I bought for myself was a Duncan Fearney, straight from the factory while on a tour in Worcester. Not great either but on a trip to see my sister Wendy in London early in 1985, I dropped into Lillywhites in Piccadilly Circus and found a Gray Nicholls Powerspot. What a shop, what a bat.

Anyone who has met me will have spotted that I am not very tall so it seems very strange that this Powerspot was a long handle version. At the time, I was experimenting with the Graham Gooch batting style of holding the bat shoulder high about 10 minutes before the bowler started his run up. It should never have worked but it did. David Gower used a Powerspot, maybe that was in my mind.

Bats are personal. A bat that will suit me, is just another lump of dead wood in someone else’s paw. Does it feel right in the hands?  Is the handle too chunky or feel just a bit thin and weak?
And the balance, oh the mystical balance.  As any Harry Potter fan will tell you, J.K. Rowling reckoned that the wand choose the wizard and so it is with the willow. I wonder if J.K. is a cricket fan for she has nailed that very feeling.  Sometimes it just feels right. 

I am from a time when a new bat came with a small bottle of linseed oil and a warning to “knock it in” for a few weeks before letting it out into the real world.  It was advice worth heeding too.  Many a bat has fallen at the first when some smart arse bowler decided to use a new ball in the nets to a pristine bat face.  So we took our time and gently eased the bat into the routine, knocking in with an old ball, throw downs, a net and finally the real world of a game.  Sand it down a little, and not too much oil.

A Duncan Fearnley in action

Then and only then do you discover if the investment has been worthwhile.

"We're just not getting on"

Those were the words of Andrew Poynter as he handed me a Gray Nicholls bat to try. As Peter Prendergast says, there are two types of bats, one that scores runs and one.………well you can probably work out the rest. The bat got passed around, we picked it up, took our stance and then only then played a shot. I went for a cover drive, Pete claims his shot was aimed over mid wicket while in fact I and other witnesses to the incident suggest that a correct forward defense was his shot of choice.  Seriously what was he thinking, who judges bats with a boring old poke.  It is still a matter of dispute and subject to ongoing legal arbitration, but he was greeted with "That's not how you test a bat".  No balls involved here remember just shadow batting. We could see the look of anguish on AP's face at this exchange.

The bat was a thing of beauty, and yes bats can be, and it clearly was causing him pain to see it being lauded so profusely.  "Are you sure?" we tested him. He explained that it was indeed a beaut, lovely weight, lovely wood, fantastic balance and middle, great in the nets, but it refused to score runs out on the wicket. So you can see, they just weren't getting along so this was a relationship from which he had to walk away.  It was  a brave decision but ultimately the right one, some things are just not meant to be.  While we expressed our condolences, privately we were delighted. The bat found a home with us and was used quite regularly by myself and the 2 young lads.  

Both Andrew V and myself really fancied it  but just as AP had said despite its show offy performances in the nets, it steadfastly refused to perform when the pressure was on.  The youngest has had some success with it and Fiona still fancies her chances.  Currently it resides in the attic, waiting to perform its mysticism over another player who “really likes the look of this stick”. Just wait till they pick it up.

We do get attached to a bat, some have been known or at least alleged to have slept with their bat, but whatever the sleeping arrangements we like to keep them close to us at all times.  In a great article under the title “Cricket Undesirables” Peter Prendergast gives his tuppence worth on a new bat appearing in the changing room, 

The guy who doesn’t properly appreciate someone else’s new bat.

This is a real bugbear of mine. Everyone who gets a new bat deserves to be told that it is an absolute beauty, that he or she is going to get loads of runs with it. It is basic cricket manners. And this applies doubly for kids. It is a really wonderful thing for a young boy or girl to receive a new bat and anyone who finds fault with it or damns it with faint praise is a complete dick.

Solution: Start the playing in process off the inside of his kneecap.
 
(PS time to run that piece again Barry)

And he is right (again).  In my opening paragraph I heaped faint praise on Enda’s Scoop but my scorn for that piece of willow is only being made known 40 plus years later.  Clearly I would never have told Enda my views back then.  He had a right to love his bat, after all he had paid the equivalent of a month of my wages on it and at that price you gave it every opportunity to be loved.  Maybe he didn’t fancy the Gunn and Moores that Ian Keartland sent my way, but he never said a bad word about them (nor could he).  

David Vincent century

In the modern world, bats have a shorter life span with hunks of dried and compressed willow breaking seemingly at every game.  The bat repairer is a person whose number should be in your contacts.  A bat that scores runs should be cherished and given every opportunity to continue their career, preferably in your hands.

The youngest, in common with a growing number of Leinster cricketers, started using a brand by the name of BlueRoom in recent years.  The company is owned by Rob Pack and based in Northamptonshire.  His contact with Irish cricket came via Alan Lewis initially and grows year on year.  

What was impressive about Rob was that having received an order with an idea of ideal weights and balance, he conducted a video call with David to discuss all the requirements before setting out to fulfill the order.  And the result is a bat to which the buyer is very attached, the bat repairer had to be called on recently and David was bereft for a while.  Maybe others do that too, I have no idea but there is an interest in what the player wanted and needed which was sorted out before a bat was made. It felt like the bat maker was as invested in the transaction as the buyer.  

You have one final innings to play, you'll get some runs, that's guaranteed but which bat will you take to the middle. From all your career, youth and adult, which bat takes that trip to and from your final knock. For me, it is the bat that replaced my beloved Powerspot.

If the Powerspot was a soft wood specimen, the Newbury that replaced it was made of iron. A standard handle this time, Graham Gooch theory had gone out the window by the end of June and with a magnificent balance. God I loved that bat. I only used it for half a season. Somehow it ended up in Johnny Fitz's attic and when he took off to the US, his mother did a clear out and returned the bat to the club. It still has that star quality. It was taken into the nets and used in games. Despite the years, it still had it. For all I know it is still going strong, getting admiring glances, not a mark on its pristine face.