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work with a bespoke client I can make
them a cricket bat within a few hours,
so to see the smile on their face when
I’ve finished is what makes it all worth
it.
How has increased competition from
the mass market affected things? Has
it made it harder for the smaller guys?
It hasn’t really affected us and if
anything our sales have grown
stronger. Most cricketers realise the
difference between a factory-made bat
and one made by hand in England. So
what we are finding now is that people
are looking for quality, especially when
these bigger brands are charging the
same sort of money as us. So our sales
have improved if anything.
BEH
IND
THE
E
D
A
L
B
If you’re serious about your cricket,
you’ll know about Millichamp & Hall.
The Somerset bat-makers based within
the county ground at Taunton have
been producing high-quality handmade bats for recreational players (and
many pros, on the quiet) for decades.
These days, with Craig Kieswetter as
an ambassador with a brash new range
of gear that stands for big hitting and
rude-boy styling, they are adapting to
the modern market whilst striving to
maintain the bespoke feel.
88 | AOC | SEPTEMBER 2014
Master bat-maker at M&H Rob
Chambers – who trained under
the original Julian Millichamp –
speaks to Miles Dilworth about the
manufacturing business and how
a small-scale boutique brand are
thriving in changing times.
What do you enjoy most about
your job?
We do quite a lot of bespoke work
and it’s quite usual to be involved
in a product where you can start
and finish on the same day. So if I
In your new CK22 range you seem
to be modernising the brand to
something more bold and brash.
We are – I think the market forces are
dictating where we go as a brand.
There’s no escaping the fact that the
CK22 is still selling like hot cakes
and, with all due respect to Craig
(Kieswetter), I don’t think it’s just
because he’s supported it. It’s more
the colours and the shape of the bat.
There’s a definite move towards the
Twenty20 style of blade. Anything
that is big and light is the holy grail
of cricket bats really and the CK22
bat shape lends itself to those sort of
attributes. There’s certainly a move
for us towards a slightly louder label.
It’s a difficult one. We’ll always have
the purists who like a bat with minimal
livery but at the end of the day we
have to think about what sells.
Is there a risk of losing the boutique
charm that initially attracted people
then? Is that a bit of a balancing act?
It’s a really tough balancing act. I
don’t think we’ll ever get it exactly
right. When we went for a minimalist
label with our last set of bats someone
remarked that they looked like they
belonged in a butcher’s shop window.
If we do something that’s louder then
people say that it looks like a graphic
equaliser. Believe it or not the CK label
is actually based upon a 1980s design
that’s a reverse of an existing retro
label that we use, so everything is
made for a reason. It’s a tough one but
we’ve still got bat-makers who are here
in the flesh and you can come down
and watch them in action, which you
can’t do with a lot of the other brands out there. So while we might be
modernising our shapes and our brand, the way the bats are made is
still exactly the same.
You’ve never picked up big player endorsement deals. Does the
Kieswetter line signify a more commercial approach?
It’s a difficult one. Because we are a bespoke brand I’m personal
friends with Craig so that’s why he uses M&H. It’s quite unusual
because most of the guys at that level are demanding quite large
sums of money so we’ve been extremely lucky with Craig coming on
board as a sort of personal favour because he likes the kit. I don’t
think you’ll be likely to see Chris Gayle using M&H any time soon. We
are limited in the amount of bats we can make so there’s no point in
us sponsoring lots of big names because we wouldn’t be able to cope
with the demand. At the moment we’re focusing very much on the
high-end youth market and young county players in particular. A lot
of kit in the youth sector is really quite poor so we’re concentrating on
offering the best youth bats out there. Our Harrow bats are twice the
size of most of our competitors which is giving our youngsters quite a
big advantage.
WHAT’S DHONI USING?
The Indian skipper has his own range of Spartan
kit – high-quality gear covering off the keen
cricketer’s keenest desires, but also with the
ability to catch the eye of all young (and not so
young) Indian fans looking for some fresh stash.
There are six grades to
choose from in MSD’s bulging
stable, from the MSD7 LE
retailing at £470, through
the Helicopter, T20, Warrior,
Bullet and, at £115, the
Fighter. As the selection of
thrusting and aggressive
brand names suggest, they’re
designed to have the ball
stay hit…
What are your tips for people buying a bat?
Forget about grains. Most of the people who
come in here have been told they need X
amount of grains, it has to be totally clean,
no knots etc. but really it makes absolutely
no difference. The top piece of advice is to
pick a couple that you like the feel of and
then get a wooden mallet and loosely tap
the middle of the bat and in theory it should
spring off. That will tell you how good the
middle is. It’s all about the rebound quality
of the wood.
What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in
your 18 years as a bat-maker?
Bats are kind of like handbags; they’re like
fashion accessories now. The shape is just
completely different. When I started bats
were really quite thin, very bulbous. The
edges on a standard cricket bat would have
been maybe half an inch but now they’re
three times the size for the same sort of
weight. The pressing has changed. We’ve
always had a round sort of pressing on the
face but now we’ve got flat pressing which
obviously makes the edges look larger
because you’re not rounding off any of the
leading edges. Bat weights have probably
come down slightly, the average is probably
about 2lb 9in now whereas when I started
it was probably about 2lb 10in. But also the
game has changed. The shots that people are
playing now are very different to those that
would have been played 20 years ago.
Light, supple and
breathable, Spartan’s
range of soft goods are
made for those who
want to spend a long
and effective time at
the crease. Both the
pads and the gloves
look very tidy, too.
www.alloutcricket.com | AOC | 89