Cricket Brand Guidelines: Bat Makers, Willow and the Names on the Bat
Twenty-nine brand guides to the cricket trade — bat makers in England, India and Pakistan, the names on the bat face, the willow and the helmets.
A cricket bat is one of the most tightly defined objects in sport. The Laws of Cricket, written by the MCC, say plainly: “The blade shall consist solely of wood,” and set its limits — “Width: 4.25 in/10.8 cm Depth: 2.64 in/6.7 cm Edges: 1.56 in/4.0 cm” — with the handle no more than 52 per cent of the bat’s length for adult sizes. The brands in this hub compete inside those rules.
Willow first
Most top-grade bats begin as English willow. A 1936 Forestry Commission bulletin named the tree as “Salix alba var. caerulea” and said it “may attain the dimensions required by bat manufacturers in twelve to eighteen years.” The trees grow mainly in East Anglia, and a bacterial infection called watermark disease is serious enough that a 1974 order lets local officers require diseased willows to be cut down and burned.
The names on the bat face
Not every name on a bat belongs to its maker. The International Cricket Council’s clothing and equipment regulations say one of their aims is “To allow an opportunity for players to obtain some revenue from controlled bat advertising,” and distinguish a manufacturer’s logo from a “Player’s Bat Logo” of a sponsor. That is why some of the biggest names in Indian cricket, such as the tyre makers MRF and CEAT, appear on bats.
Helmets and the safety standard
Head protection has its own standard. BS 7928, the British Standard for cricket head protectors, was revised in 2013 to add, in the British Standards Institution’s words, “a projectile test for facial impacts,” and that version came into effect on 1 July 2014. Our helmet guides explain how makers describe their compliance.
How to use these guides
Each guide covers who owns the name, where the bats or kit are made — England, India or Pakistan, often in clusters such as Jalandhar, Meerut and Sialkot — and the brand’s visual identity. Self-descriptions are attributed to the company, and sensitive history is reported from the record. The table at the end gathers the essentials.
The bat makers
English, Indian and Australian bat makers, and who owns them today.
- Gunn & Moore — The 1885 Nottingham bat maker named for a Test batsman, sold through the company behind Unicorn darts, which says its DXM English-willow bats are made in its own Nottingham factory.
- Kookaburra — The Melbourne family firm named after a pet bird in 1890, famous for its balls, a bat maker only since about 1984, and the company whose carbon-backed bat MCC ruled illegal in 2006.
- SG — The Sanspareils Greenlands house founded in Sialkot in 1931, restarted in Meerut after Partition, maker for foreign brands before its own, and supplier of every Test ball in India since 1994.
- Duncan Fearnley — The bat brand of a Worcestershire cricketer who made bats from 1955, which says it introduced the first logo to the game, and whose company passed to Indian-controlled holdings in 2025.
- SS — The Sareen family’s Meerut workshop, a partnership firm that buys its English willow from Essex, makes hundreds of bats a day, and made the bat behind another brand’s sticker in a World Cup final.
- DSC — Delux Sports Company of Batala, Punjab, a family firm that says it began by making bats for the world’s top brands, now sells under its own name, and offers a separate range marked “Made in England.”
- Millichamp & Hall — The Somerset bat makers who began on a repair-shop bench in Perth in 1987, say their bats went on an Ashes tour under sponsors’ labels, and now work under the name of founders who have left.
The names on the bat face
Sponsors, tyre makers and bat makers whose logos appear on the blade.
- MRF — The Chennai company that began making toy balloons in 1946, became India’s best-known tyre maker, and put its name on the bats of Tendulkar, Lara and Kohli without, on any documented record, making a bat.
- CEAT — The tyre maker whose name began as an Italian cable company in 1924, has been owned in India by the RPG group since 1982, put its sticker on Rohit Sharma’s bat in 2015, and invented a ratings system for cricketers.
- Woodworm — The English bat brand born in 2001 when a father carved woodworm-eaten wood from his son’s bat, made under contract by Hunts County, carried by Flintoff, and in administration within seven years.
- Hunts County — The Huntingdon bat maker that dates itself to 1904, made the bats behind the Woodworm and Mongoose brands, and whose craftsmen, as one told the BBC, make bats that wear “somebody else’s stickers.”
- Mongoose — The long-handled, short-bladed bat dreamed up by an advertising man recovering from a stroke, launched in 2009, swung by Matthew Hayden in the IPL, made by contract workshops, and in administration by 2011.
- Spartan — The Sydney-based brand that signed Tendulkar, Dhoni and Clarke, saw one of its companies placed in liquidation in 2018, and in 2020 had judgment entered against it for Tendulkar after it failed to pay him.
- Newbery — The Sussex bat name of the man called “the Picasso of cricket bats,” whose company was registered nine days before his death, and which now tells buyers plainly which of its products are made in India.
The willow
Bat makers built around English willow and the trees it comes from.
- Slazenger — The London sports house of 1881 that bought Bradman’s batmaker during the war, passed to Dunlop and then to Sports Direct, and now sells both English- and Kashmir-willow bats under a panther without saying where they are made.
- CA Sports — The Sialkot maker founded in 1958, named for the initials of its founder and his son, which began with wooden tennis rackets, calls itself the pioneer of the tape-ball bat, and signed Babar Azam in 2025.
- Ihsan — The Sialkot bat maker founded in 1957, which its English willow supplier says began with Pakistani willow and turned to English clefts in the 1980s, and which signed a documented kit deal with Zimbabwe Cricket in 2020.
- Laver & Wood — The New Zealand bat maker founded in 1999 by a Somerset-trained English bat-maker and a Hawke’s Bay mallet maker, which shapes imported English willow from J.S. Wright & Sons and moved to Napier in 2017.
- Salix — The Kent bat maker set up in 1990 by Andrew Kember and Hugh Betts, still run by its founders and a second-generation maker, whose name is the botanical genus of the willow it carves.
- Kippax — The Yorkshire bat maker started in 1976 by the former Yorkshire leg-spinner Peter Kippax, run by his son since 2000, which grows its own willow in Yorkshire woodlands and says all its bats are made in the county.
- Chase Cricket — The Hampshire bat maker established in 1996, acquired from Robin Smith in 2007 by Dan and Julie Swaine, and bought in 2025 by a willow-growing family so that the bat’s journey “from sapling to century” sits under one owner.
Helmets and protection
Helmet and protective-equipment makers, and the standard their products are tested to.
- Masuri — The cricket-helmet maker that began in Cape Town in the late 1980s with a steel grille, is now based in Winchester, says it has never paid a player to wear its helmets, and launched a neck guard in 2015; its helmets carry the British Standard BS 7928.
- B3 Cricket — The Nottingham bat maker launched in October 2012 by a former Gunn & Moore manager, which says it is owned by the people who work in it, buys its willow from J.S. Wright, and warns buyers against “sticker merchants.”
- Shrey — The cricket-helmet brand launched in Jalandhar in 2013 by the Kohli family behind BAS, run by Raghav Kohli, which says it makes everything in-house, certifies its helmets to BS 7928, and counts England’s Joe Root among its users by its partner’s account.
- FC Sondhi — The Jalandhar maker whose founder, born in Sialkot, started a company in England in 1944, opened a Jalandhar branch in 1950, and whose firm J.S. Wright now calls the sole manufacturer of New Balance cricket equipment worldwide.
- BAS Vampire — Beat All Sports, the Jalandhar bat maker whose Vampire line is one of Indian cricket’s best-known names, which dates itself to Sialkot in 1935, and whose owner says he sent MS Dhoni his first kit in 1998.
- AS Sports — Asghar Sports, the Sialkot bat maker founded in 1960 by a craftsman trained under British firms, run by his son and grandsons, which has bought English willow from J.S. Wright since 1988 and says every bat is handcrafted in its Sialkot workshop.
- Solosun — The Indian cricket maker that its willow supplier says began in a rented Gurgaon workshop in 2006, moved into bats with a hub in Meerut, buys English willow from J.S. Wright, and sells through its own shops rather than paying players.
More cricket guides
Our earlier guide to one of the best-known English bat makers.
- Gray-Nicolls — the Sussex bat maker.
At a glance: who owns the name and where it is made
Taken from each guide’s fact panel, as of October 2026. Ownership and production change; follow the link for sources and detail.
| Brand | Origin | Owner | Where made |
|---|---|---|---|
| AS Sports | Sialkot, Pakistan (1960) | Asghar family (Khalid Javed, managing director) | “our workshop in Sialkot, Pakistan” |
| B3 Cricket | Nottingham, England (2012) | B3 Cricket (International) Ltd — owned by its staff, it says | Nottingham (and Hailsham), England |
| BAS Vampire | Sialkot (1935, it says); Jalandhar (1950) (1935) | Kohli family (partnership firm) | Jalandhar, Punjab (factory, per its owner) |
| CA Sports | Sialkot, Pakistan (1958) | Founding family (CA Pro (Pvt.) Ltd) | Sialkot |
| CEAT | Turin, Italy (name) · Mumbai (Indian company) (1924 · 1958) | RPG Group (since 1982) | Bats: not by CEAT on any record we found |
| Chase Cricket | Hampshire, England (1996) | Waterer family (Wyvols Court Farm, since 2025) | Hampshire workshop, southeast English willow |
| DSC | Punjab, India (early 1980s (company)) | Aggarwal family (family-run) | India; separate “Made in England” range |
| Duncan Fearnley | Yorkshire / Worcester, England (1955 (bat making)) | Indian-controlled holding company (since 2025) | Some 5* models “made in England”; others not stated |
| FC Sondhi | England (1944); Jalandhar branch (1950) (1961 (Indian company)) | Sondhi family (F.C. Sondhi & Co. (India) Pvt Ltd) | Jalandhar, Punjab |
| Gunn & Moore | Nottingham, England (1885) | Unicorn Products (trust-held holding company) | Nottingham (DXM English willow) · see entry |
| Hunts County | St Neots, Huntingdonshire, England (1904 (it says)) | Privately held (company register) | Huntingdon (and contract workshops) |
| Ihsan | Sialkot, Pakistan (1957) | Founding family (trading as Ihsan / Ihsan International) | Sialkot |
| Kippax | Huddersfield, Yorkshire (1976) | Kippax family (Chris Kippax) | Yorkshire (“All our bats are made in Yorkshire”) |
| Kookaburra | Melbourne, Australia (1890) | Thompson family | Balls: Australia · bats: not stated |
| Laver & Wood | Central Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand (1999) | James Laver (majority) and investors | Napier, NZ — from English willow |
| Masuri | Cape Town, South Africa (late 1980s) | The Masuri Group Ltd (no controlling holder registered) | Not stated on its site |
| Millichamp & Hall | Somerset, England (1987) | Robert Chambers (company register) | Taunton, Somerset |
| Mongoose | London, England (2009) | See entry — companies dissolved | Contract workshops (England, India) |
| MRF | Madras (Chennai), India (1946) | Listed company (BSE 500290) | Bats: not by MRF on any record we found |
| Newbery | East Sussex, England (early 1900s (it says)) | Privately held (company register) | Top bats: UK · balls: India (it says) |
| Salix | Langley, near Maidstone, Kent (1990) | Kember family and co-founder (independent) | Kent, England |
| SG | Sialkot (then British India) (1931) | Anand family | Meerut, India |
| Shrey | Jalandhar, Punjab, India (2013) | Kohli Sports Pvt. Ltd (Kohli family) | In-house, it says; parent registered in Jalandhar |
| Slazenger | London, England (1881) | Frasers Group (Sports Direct, since 2004) | Not stated on its site |
| Solosun | Gurgaon, India (2006) | Devashish and family (proprietorship, per directories) | Gurgaon, Delhi and Meerut, per J.S. Wright |
| Spartan | Sydney, Australia | See entry — several companies | Bats: Jalandhar, India (see entry) |
| SS | Meerut, India (1969) | Sareen family (partnership firm) | Meerut, India |
| Woodworm | Sussex, England (2001) | Brand sold to The Sports HQ (2008) | Under contract by Hunts County, England |
Frequently asked questions
What wood are cricket bats made from?
Willow. The Laws of Cricket require the blade to “consist solely of wood,” and the traditional choice is the cricket bat willow, Salix alba var. caerulea, grown mainly in East Anglia. Kashmir willow is also used, and several guides in this hub cover both.
Why do tyre companies appear on cricket bats?
Because ICC regulations allow a sponsor’s “Player’s Bat Logo” on a bat as well as the maker’s own logo, so a player can be sponsored by a company that does not make bats.
Part of our Sports & Outdoors brand guidelines. See also brands by industry.