TOPIC:

Southy you make a very good point about the plethora of bat brands around these days.
I can only ever remember the likes of Gray-Nicholls, Stuart Surridge (SS), Kookaburra, Gunn & Moore (GM), County, Slazenger, Duncan Fearnley (DF), SP, Puma and maybe a couple of others growing up in the 1980s but now you have 10 times as many with a shiteload coming from India and the sub continent etc.....not too mention all of the advertising/sponsorship on the bats these days!

Only the first 4 or so of those makers left in the caper now mate - although I hear an old Perth firm Millichamp & Hall (taken over by PUMA years ago) may have resurfaced
I also see Stuart Surridge nowadays mostly make apparel for soccer & cricket among sports with a far smaller less spotlight bat & gear section
haven't seen anything County , Slazenger , DF and SP has been gone for many years now

During the Fox coverage of one of the tests they did a segment on bats and how they have evolved down the years. They showed a collection of bats starting from the 1930s through to todays ones and it was amazing to see that Bradman was batting with a virtual matchstick compared with the huge chunks of wood they have nowadays!

going back in time there were "big bats" from the name brands - Stuart Surridge had the Jumbo & later Turbo , Duncan Fearnley had the Magnum , Gray Nicholls had the Double Powerspot , Gunn & Moore had the Maxi  - and all of these bats were thicker and heavier than the rest or had a bit of innovation of the time
today the subcontinent bat looks way thicker than the others maybe it's just my eye but it just appears the middle of them or the sweetspot is fatter then a big taper off
 

Beasley Hutton wrote:

Southy you make a very good point about the plethora of bat brands around these days.
I can only ever remember the likes of Gray-Nicholls, Stuart Surridge (SS), Kookaburra, Gunn & Moore (GM), County, Slazenger, Duncan Fearnley (DF), SP, Puma and maybe a couple of others growing up in the 1980s but now you have 10 times as many with a shiteload coming from India and the sub continent etc.....not too mention all of the advertising/sponsorship on the bats these days!

reading a bit of everything I'd been trying to remember one of the old timer bats - the old cheap one that was always in the big bag at the bottom along with the odd pairs of ancient gloves , hey some of the bags I remember had the prehistoric garden rubber spikes sewn onto rough calico gloves
Rapier the bat was called - and bloody horrible things they were mate