Australian batting legend Ricky Ponting has called for regulation in the size and weight of willow used in Test cricket to ensure a greater balance between bat and ball.
Currently, cricket laws only limit the length and width of bats, not the depth or weight, leading to development of bats made from lighter material but with extremely thick edges.
Ponting said he had no problem with such bats being used in the shorter forms of the game but believed they should be banned from Test cricket.
“I don’t know how they are doing it to make the size of bats they are making now,” Ponting was quoted as saying.
“The modern day bats and weight in particular — it’s just a completely different game. Full credit to them. If they are there use them, if there’s a better golf club or tennis racquet everyone will use it. It’s nothing against the players.
“If you are strong enough to use them that’s fine, but you should not get a bat that’s bigger in size than (MS) Dhoni’s but a whole lot lighter. Chris Gayle’s the same.
“Everyone talks about Chris Gayle’s bat size, but it’s three and half pounds. He’s big enough and strong enough to use it. I only get worried when they are really big and really light.”
Ponting will be at the next meeting of the MCC’s World Cricket Committee at Lord’s early next week, and he said bat size and weight would be one of the topics discussed.
“I think it will happen. I am going in a couple of weeks for a World Cricket Committee meeting and that will be one of the topics talked about. I don’t mind it for the shorter versions of the game.
“I would actually say you’ve got a bat you can use in Test cricket and a certain type of bat you can use in one-day cricket and T20 cricket. The short forms of the game survive on boundaries — fours and sixes — whereas the Test game is being dominated too much now by batters because the game is a bit easier for them than it was.”
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