To Somerset, to Taunton, for help, for salvation from the finest craftsmen in the world. It was time to change bats, time to blame your old tools and get better, newer ones. I went to buy the most treasured object man can hold; a bat made by Millichamp and Hall.
In a modest workshop, bat Mecca lies hidden in the county ground at Somerset. As you near their doors, your ears prick to sounds of whirling saws, singing planes and screeching willow as another cleft of wood is drawn, shaped and fashioned into a work of art. Who needs fancy orchestras when some of us would pay the earth to hear the arrangement from this chamber.
When it was time to go home I was sad. Sad because I’d just spent some of the best hours of my life; all the while mourning the years I’d lost. 14 years in education, child to teen, followed by 4 years reading rot and nonsense at an obscure medieval university on the Fife coast; all for a career but all for what? When I could have been apprenticed to a batmaker; learning to rasp handles- a new euphemism for Onan’s adherents surely? if I knew what I knew now I’d be a batmaker today. Give me those years again and I’d be a batmaker. I could have been a batmaker. I could have been a batmaker.
5 Comments
I own a m&h original cricket bat, and its the best bat i ve ever used, highly recommended.
how long did you knock your bat in for?
I didn’t. MandH knocked it in for me I think. if they didn’t, it didn’t matter because when it hits the middle- a lot of middle-it just sings. I did put a ball in a sock and wack it for a bit but after 15 mins, I got bored. Throw downs in the nets knocked the bat in as well.
any damage marks yet? I ask as i bought the “solution” bat from M&H been knocking it in for 4 & a half hours so far! - I like to make sure a new bat is knocked in so it lasts longer lol
This is a wonderful site by the way! - i stumbled a cross it by chance (when looking for M&H pads of all things!) i do hope you get your 100!! how did you do at the weekend?
The M&H Original is by far the best bat that I have ever seen or used. It has a fantastic pickup and when the ball hits the middle, it goes…
Needless to say that you can’t even feel the ball hitting the bat when it centres.
No doubt in my mind, well worth the money.
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