Ten Bats, Ten Checks: A Cricket Bat Inspection Checklist for Coaches

Find the broken bat before the first net

Every academy has a bag of bats that nobody has opened since the last game of last season. Ten bats, give or take. Some were lent out. Some sat in a damp store for months. The first net session is a poor time to learn which ones have gone.

This is the cricket bat inspection checklist we would hand a coach. It has ten checks and takes about two minutes a bat, so twenty minutes for the whole bag. We shape bats in Meerut, and the places we watch on the bench are the places that give way in use: the join at the top of the blade, the toe and the edges.

You need a table, a kitchen scale, a roll of masking tape, a ruler and good daylight. Make three piles on the floor: play, repair, retire. Every bat ends the twenty minutes in a pile, with a strip of tape on the back that says why. (Yes, that includes the one with a senior player's name on it in marker.)

The handle: checks one to three

Check one is the twist. Hold the blade between your knees, take the handle in both hands and try to turn it, gently. It should feel like one piece of wood. Any movement or creak sends the bat to the repair pile at once.

Check two is the splice, the V-shaped join where the handle goes into the blade. Look at it from both sides. Fine lines in the sticker or the finish mean little. A gap that takes a fingernail means the glue has let go.

Check three is the grip. Roll back the top 5 cm. Rubber that has gone hard, shiny or torn should come off. This is the easiest fix on the list: a new rubber bat grip, a cone and ten minutes of work. While the grip is rolled back, look at the twine under it. Loose or frayed twine goes on the repair note too.

The toe: checks four and five

The toe takes the most punishment and gets the least care. Players tap it on hard ground. Bats get stood on it in wet corners. It drinks water from the floor.

Check four is cracks. Turn the bat over and look at the bottom end. Our rule of thumb is 2 cm. A crack shorter than that, which closes when you press it, can be glued at home. Work wood glue into it, bind it tight with twine and leave it for 24 hours. A longer crack, or one that climbs up the face, needs a person who repairs bats for a living.

Check five is damp. Press your thumb hard along the bottom edge. The wood should not give. A dark stain with soft wood under it means water got in. If the soft patch is small, lay the bat flat for a week, away from sun and heaters, and then press again. If the wood crumbles under your thumb, the bat is finished.

The face and the edges: checks six to eight

Check six is lines on the face. Run a fingernail across them. Hairlines that run up the blade along the grain are normal on a bat that has done a season. Leave them alone. A line that runs across the grain is a different matter. Measure it. Anything over 3 cm goes to the repair pile.

Check seven is dents and lifted fibres. A ball mark is only a mark. A dent that holds a fingertip, or fibres that stand up when you rub them, needs light sanding. Follow with a thin coat of raw linseed oil, about a teaspoon over the whole face. Lay the bat flat for 24 hours. Keep oil off the splice and the handle. Give the sanded patch a few minutes with a mallet before it faces a hard ball again.

Check eight is the edges. Run your thumb down both sides from shoulder to toe, slowly. Edges take every mistimed shot, so they show the season more than the face does. A chip you could cover with a thumbnail sands smooth. A crack running in from the edge by more than 2 cm wants glue and binding. If a piece longer than your thumb is missing, the balance of the blade has changed, and the bat goes to retire.

The sound and the weight: checks nine and ten

Check nine is the sound. Hold the bat loosely by the handle so it hangs free, and tap down the face with an old ball or a mallet. A sound blade gives much the same note along its length. A dull patch means something has changed under the surface. Mark it with tape and tap the next bat. Ten bats side by side make this easy, because each one gives you nine others to compare it with.

Check ten is the weight against the player, and it is the one coaches skip. A bat can be perfectly sound and still be wrong for the child who was handed it last year. Put it on the scale and write the grams on the tape. Then bring the player over. Stand the bat beside their leg with the toe on the floor. The top of the handle should come to about the top of the thigh. Check that height against our bat size chart, because children can gain several centimetres over one off-season.

Now have the player hold the bat straight out in the top hand for ten seconds. If the blade drops or the wrist shakes before ten, the bat is too heavy for that player today. That does not make it a bad bat. Pass it to someone it fits, and write the new name on the tape.

What to do with the three piles

The play pile gets a wipe, a thin coat of oil where the face looks dry, and goes back in the bag.

Sort the repair pile by who can do the work. Grips, short toe cracks and small edge chips are a job for a coach with glue and twine on a free afternoon. A loose splice or a handle that turns is bench work. The old handle has to come out and a new cane handle has to be glued and pressed in. Pay for that only if the blade itself passed checks six to nine.

The retire pile is for a blade split right through, a handle break with a crack running down into the blade, or a toe that crumbles. Mark these clearly. Paint a band across the back or cut the handle short, so a retired bat does not find its way into the bag next month. A cut-down blade still works for catching drills and for showing juniors what a splice looks like from the inside.

Keep one sheet of paper with ten rows and ten columns, and fill it in again at the midpoint of the season. Next year the grams and the notes are already there, and you will see which bats went downhill and which player was hard on them.

Grips, cones, mallets, oil and replacement handles for the repair pile are on our bat care and accessories page.