Game Set & Match Visit to Gray-Nicolls and Kookaburra to select our cricket bats, days we always look forward to. Something we have done for the past three years and it really has made a difference for our customers.
We had two very contrasting visits to two of the biggest manufacturers of cricket bats at the end of January.
Firstly we went up to Corby in Northants to go through our Kookaburra February delivery, a very impressive and modern, large warehouse with boxes of bats stacked high on shelves to the roof. Over 15,000 bats in stock for us to go through to find the best bats in each of the models, but thankfully we did find some very nice bats. Mark Jackson at Kookaburra plays a good level of cricket and helped us a bit to narrow down our selection.
Click to see videos of the visits to Kookaburra and Gray-Nicolls.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Gamesetandmatch1995
Gray-Nicolls is a very contrasting experience as they have been at their current premises since the early 1900’s, a maze of Victorian buildings as the offices, with signed bats from WG Grace to Brian Lara, Len Hutton to Alistair Cook everywhere. Almost a museum to the great game, it really gave you a feeling of history and tradition.
We then went through in to the bat-making department where all the top end bats are made, saw a bat being repaired and a good look at all the old machines used to craft a bat in to its finished shape.
Onwards even further in to the bat storage area to hand pick our bats. Simple, but effective bat racks with bats pile high to go through. We choose on weight, pick-up, appearance and then use a bat mallet to pick out the bests bats. Craig was very helpful taking his time out to pick out some of the bats too on what was a valuable and fun day at Gray-Nicolls.