One size doesn't fit all

Newbery, the UK cricket bat maker, has launched a new bat called the 'chic'. It's a bat designed and scaled specifically to suit women, http://tiny.cc/1o5S2. Let's get the obvious and trivial out of the way first. I guess the chic is meant to be 'sheek' a la fashionable, but it's inevitable that the blokes are going to call it the 'chick'. I suspect a name change for next season.


Before I finally get on to the serious stuff, Grays produced a pink hockey stick a few years ago directly marketed to women, which was apparently successful. Despite the gross gender stereotyping that both men and women would do a double-take on, it was actually very popular. Lesson: there's nothing wrong with gross gender stereotyping sometimes, and delightful to fly in the face of political correctness. It seems though that the product no longer exists in its pure girly form, and they seem to have toned their graphic design that may also appeal to the blokes. Pink is after all okay for men in sport now thanks to the Breast Cancer awareness campaigns, not sure about anywhere else though.

So, to the matter of scaling of sports equipment. In cricket children have been catered for some time with 'Junior' ranges. Women have been left to use lighter adult (i.e. men's) versions, or much like the way women with small feet buy kids shoes, they may use a Junior size 6 or Harrow bat. Research has shown that scaling of sports equipment for children is mostly based on a mythical 'average child' in specific age groups. Equipment has at worst simply been shortened, and at best geometrically scaled. In cricket, children's bat sizes are scaled based on height ranges, with a nominal weight for each of the eight sizes available. The choice appears to be wide enough to provide a bat to suit most children, but while there appears to be a range of weights on offer for each size, in reality bat makers only supply a single weight per size. Some children will therefore not be able to get a bat suited to their size, build and ability. Here we have a case of one size does not fit all.

While children have 'junior' bats to choose from, women have had nothing until now. This is surely long overdue since the physiology and biomechanics of women are quite clearly very different to children and men. For instance, hand sizes are smaller, so handle diameter should reflect that, arm length and strength is different so weight but more importantly pick-up should be different, and so on.

So well done Newbery for making a smaller bat with a smaller handle. Not rocket science, but why has it taken so long? Designing products to suit women is commonplace, but it has to be cricket that only finally just gets it. The sport where, at the heart of the cricketing establishment (Lords), women have only recently been given equality in the game by being allowed in to become members in 2003.

Here's another clue to where scaling is imperfect. I read the recent reports on England Women's success in the World Twenty 20. After perusing the stats, and doing some sums, it was striking that only 23 sixes were hit by women in 15 matches. Compare this to156 sixes in 27 matches by the men in their World Twenty 20 - a factor of 4 difference on the average per game. Surely they are allowed to enjoy the thrill of sending one over the boundary a little more often? Might also be good for spectators too? The ball is lighter (5oz compared to 5.5oz), the bats are lighter, but the boundaries are the same. Why not bring the boundary rope in a little on those big county grounds? Would the women want this?

Also of interest, while the Laws of Cricket specify a dimension and weight of the ball for women, they offer no specifications at all for the bat. There must have been some research to establish a women's ball, why not the bat? I think an enquiry to the MCC is required, unless anyone out there who sees this can illuminate the matter.