Situation Analysis
There is no doubt that Cricket is the most popular sport in India. The cricket bat manufacturing industry in India has been thriving since the time the British first saw the abundance of Willow trees in the Kashmir valley, and introduced the art of bat making in India. The cricket bat industry in India is a 66 crore industry. Bats made of Kashmir willow are second only to the ones made of English willow. These Indian made bats are used by professionals the world over, including star Indian players like Yuvraj Singh and Virendar Sehwag.
The raw materials to make bats is plentiful and so is the skilled workmanship required to craft a good quality bat. The cricket bat industry in India is highly unorganized. The most popular brands of cricket bats available in India are BDM, SS, and SG. Recently, there global sports equipment giants like Nike, Adidas and Reebok have also made an entry into this market.
The design of the cricket bat has remained largely unchanged since 1771. However, different designs, materials and variations have been tried. The most defining features of a cricket bat are its weight, type of wood and length of the handle. Recently, with the advent of 20-20 cricket and also changes in the traditional 50 over format that encourages batsmen to take more risks, a radical new design in cricket bat has caught the attention of cricket players the world over. It is called the Mongoose bat. As per cricket experts, the mongoose bat with its 33% shorter blade and 43% longer handle will enable the batsman to hit the ball harder and longer by generating higher bat speeds. The physics behind the design are such that the so called “sweet spot” is distributed throughout the surface of the blade, thus making it an ideal bat for the shorter versions of the game.
Opportunity Analysis
The advent of 20-20 cricket has revolutionized the game. It has become shorter, faster and more