Ponting's bat gets him into trouble

Cricket bats have been one of the aspects of the game which have been experimented with quite a lot. Without going too far back into history, there was Dennis Lillee with his aluminium bat at the WACA during the 1978/79 Ashes. Nothing much happened after that but 2-3 years ago, a new type of bat, the Woodworm, was introduced. The shape was very different from standard bats and now quite a few players use this bat.

Last month, there was a report on more help for the Australian team, this time from an Aussie university which aimed to make a better bat.

The latest instance of a bat making waves is that of Ricky Ponting's bat not meeting the MCC's standards since the graphite on the back of the bat apparently gave Ponting an unfair advantage since shots became that much better and powerful. Jon Pirek is convinced that this is just a paranoid English response to the fact that they're going to be whipped again.

Something tells me paranoia has struck Jon as well. "Oh no, those effing Poms are after us. Next thing they'll say is that Lee is not allowed to bowl at 160 kmph since that gives him an unfair advantage. These bloody Poms have no other job. They're shite scared of losing. Who else is going to be hauled up by the MCC?"

BBC Sport's report on this issue indicates that there're other cricketers who could experiment with graphite enhanced bats as well. In a sense, I think this is a case of cricket evolving. Tennis evolved from using wooden racquets to steel/aluminium to graphite & now composite/carbon fiber racquets. Cricket also possibly needs to evolve, at least to ensure that trees aren't cut down to facilitate a sport!