Wind and the Willow

Does wind 'stressed' willow improve cricket bat performance?
I had a conversation with a colleague recently about wind damaged willow, and its effect on making a cricket bat.  He had a piece of second-hand knowledge that in South Africa someone was making 'wind-damaged' bats that perform better than the standard.  At the time I hadn’t a clue whether this was true or not, so I tried to find some answers.

A little trawl of the web revealed the somewhat obvious that wind damage results in fibres buckled under compression, or fractured under tension. But nothing of any detail on wind damage relating to performance of bats. In conversation with Gunn and Moore they referred to 'compression creases' caused by wind damage, and some bats returned broken are logged under this term. Manufacturers will often replace a bat free of charge if such catastrophic breaks occur within one-year of purchase.

Tom Evans at Mongoose chipped in and told me that a number of retailers will sell storm damaged bats at low cost. Newbery have a bin in their Sussex shop with these bats on offer.  I guess when you've bought the willow, and you find it damaged you might as well make a bat and try to sell it, otherwise its just firewood and not good business.

Correspondence with Jeremy Ruggles at J S Wright and Sons, probably the world’s leading supplier of cricket bat willow, revealed the basic truths, but no evidence from him that a piece of wind damaged willow might perform better. He mentioned that wind damage is often seen by the bat maker when selecting his future bat material, occasionally missed, and not always rejected.  A bat with visible or hidden fibre fractures has potential for the bat to fracture after a period of use, but by no means is it guaranteed.

Then finally Paul Borst of D&P Cricket in South Africa, for they are the ones mentioned at the start, responded with some answers.  "As Jeremy [Ruggles] explained they try not to sell wind damaged bats, but I would say approx 5% of current willow to us shows these wind damaged markings. We have also found over the years that the wind damaged bats do generally respond (hit the cricket ball) very well. Every piece of willow is different but as a very general rule we have found that the wind damaged pieces of wood have a better than average response. We normally sell them off at cost with no guarantee as the can split in half at any stage."

Well there it is, from the horses mouth.  I wonder if there are professionals out there that might be in on this, and have their custom bats including some wind damage to extract better performance? After all, they can afford for the bat to break at any time. Fred Flintoff had his Woodworm bat break in spectacular style against South Africa in 2003 at Lord's. This bat is now on display in the MCC museum at Lord's.