Sachin's equipment a big difference

It is no secret that a high percentage of cricket equipment is manufactured in India and exported to other regions of the globe.

It is therefore understandable that India’s best exponents of the game are likely to wield the best bat or use the most advanced batting gloves or pads. During the Summer Spice Series, I have had the opportunity to examine Sachin Tendulkar’s chosen willow closely.

What a magnificent piece of wood. The grain is perfect, the pick-up outstanding and the edges are remarkably thick although the bat itself is not that heavy. The most startling attribute of his bat is the bow in the blade. I can find no immediate reason for this technical change, but hey, it certainly works for him.

You will also have noticed that quite a few of the Indian batsmen use moulded pads. They tend to shy away from the standard variety we are used to and tend to choose these far lighter and more manageable options.

This in fact is not new from the sub continent and one of the commentators you have been hearing on SuperSport was in fact the first to use this style. Sunil Gavaskar, way back in 1978 first experimented with this version of batting pads.

By his own admission, “he was a one’s and two’s man”, and needed something feather weight to help him scamper between the wickets. You might have guessed he is also modest as someone who plays in 125 Tests and scores 10122 runs at an average of 51.12 including 34 centuries is a bit more that an accumulator of “one’s and two’s”.

From 1978 Sunil used those pads and slowly but surely, with the help of the manufacturer, perfected them. Upon his retirement he had one or two pairs stashed away gathering dust in his attic.

You can imagine with his sheer bulk of runs he went through a few pairs! It was about this time that an enormously gifted young schoolboy was chosen to play in his maiden test for India at the tender age of sixteen. Sunil had previously seen Sachin as a fourteen year old and even then was blown away by his talent.

Obviously Sunil watched his debut with great interest, as did the rest of the world. He liked what he saw, except for one thing. Sachin was using a grubby old pair of batting pads, presumably from his school, and Sunil immediately recognised a use for his extra set at home.

Soon after that first test he presented ‘the little maestro’ with his spare pair and he has been slaughtering attacks with his nimble footwork ever since. As Sunil says though, “He doesn’t need them for his one’s and two’s because he doesn’t run much”.

One other piece of bad news for Test bowlers around the world is that Sunil has told him he will personally throttle him if he doesn’t score 40 Test centuries. He currently has 25………look out!