Bamboo bats trialled in Cambridge as a lower-cost alternative to willow
Darshil Shah showcased prototype bamboo cricket bats at his Innovation Sustainability and Access in Cricket conference in Cambridge last week, where former professional Abidine Sakande tested one of the models. Shah and his University of Cambridge team propose bamboo as a cheaper, faster-growing substitute for traditional willow bats.
Cricket’s reliance on willow is under pressure from rising demand and changing growing conditions: there are about 200 million regular cricketers worldwide, the UK produces half a million willow clefts a year and Kashmir produces between 1.5 to 3m. One cleft equals one bat, and Kashmiri farmers have replaced many willow plantations with poplar, contributing to a sharp rise in willow prices from £60 a cleft to £120 in the past few years. Attempts to use non-wood bats date back to Dennis Lillee’s use of an aluminium bat in Perth in December 1979, which ended after umpires intervened and the laws were subsequently changed to require bats to be made of wood.
Shah, an associate professor in material science and design at the University of Cambridge, began experimenting with laminated bamboo in 2019 after colleagues ran a project on laminated bamboo for buildings and he started testing offcuts as bat material. Early prototypes were very heavy and produced a 30% better ball rebound than willow; the team reduced mass by removing material until the bat resembled one from 1990. Durability problems such as peeling layers were addressed through processing improvements, and Shah says the performance now is fairly similar to that of a willow bat, “though we are doing a lot of work on how you test bats because at the moment, unlike, say, golf clubs, they are not tested at all”.
Abidine Sakande, once a professional cricketer for Leicestershire and Sussex who now works in the environmental sector, trialled a prototype at the Cambridge event and reported mixed first impressions. “When you look at the bat you don’t immediately think it is going to work, and it feels quite planky. But while it is not yet a finished product, it has a noticeable sweet spot when it connects,” he said.
Cost and environmental analyses are central to Shah’s case for bamboo: a bamboo cleft costs from £3 to £20 compared with the much higher price of willow. “For the first time we have done a life cycle assessment of the different bats,” Shah said, adding that the study compared a laminated willow bat, a traditional bat and a laminated bamboo bat. He noted that processing impacts are broadly similar across materials but transport-related emissions can be double or even triple the environmental impact of the bat, arguing that “It is the importing and exporting of raw material that is the issue.” As a result, Shah recommends making bats from local materials — English willow for the European and British market and Kashmir willow for Asian bats — while pointing out that bamboo is grown in South America, India, China, Indonesia and areas of Africa, regions where the game is expanding.
The Marylebone Cricket Club responded to willow shortages last year by holding an Emergency Cricket Bat conference in October and adjusting the laws to allow recreational bats to be made of up to three wooden pieces, a change manufacturers welcomed. Bamboo faces a separate legal barrier because it is both multiply laminated and made from a grass, and remains banned from the laws as currently written. Shah nevertheless expressed optimism about future rule changes: “For a long time the laws were applied from international games to the village green, but this has changed. I wouldn’t be surprised if more sorts of laminated bats were allowed for low-cost access areas of the game.”
Shah accepts the bamboo bat is unlikely to displace willow at the professional level but sees potential in schools and the recreational game, noting that children already often play with plastic bats. “Cricket and willow are so intertwined. But I am hopeful that as the sport grows in countries not as familiar with the link, they will be more open to using a bat made out of other materials. Cost is such a big issue, at the moment cricket is pricing people out of the game.”
