British Indian entrepreneur bats for bamboo to make cricket more affordable, accessible

London, Sep 27 (PTI) A British Indian entrepreneur, whose research proved that bamboo could offer a low-cost and more sustainable alternative to willow-based cricket bats, has been energised by a new UK government-backed funding boost to accelerate the proof-of-concept towards a mass-market appeal.

Dr Darshil Shah, a University of Cambridge scientist who examines and designs sustainable materials, hit upon the concept of bamboo bats a few years ago in the course of his work on the use of bamboo as a structural material for building homes and schools.

Earlier this week, his Cambridge spin-out CamBoom was selected among 48 projects to share 9-million-pounds of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funding aimed at supporting the development of new or improved technologies, products, processes and services across different fields.

“We are looking forward to trailblaze in exploring affordable, more accessible supplementary alternatives to English willow in cricket bats for recreational players, who might be otherwise priced-out of the game,” said Dr Shah.

“We know the bamboo bats work well technically, and this funding will help us understand attitudes and cultures, and drive changes towards inclusive innovations through low-cost bats. The funding will really help us establish product-user fit by improving user-acceptability of digitally, or CNC (Computer Numerical Control), fabricated optimised bamboo bats,” he said.

UKRI said it chose CamBoom to meet a strong consumer demand for low-cost recreational cricket bats, given that over 200 million people play cricket regularly – the majority in low and middle-income countries.

The next phase will focus on leveraging key stakeholder relationships, from players, coaches, suppliers and manufacturers to cricket administrators and governing bodies, to champion potential routes to creating a mass appeal for bamboo bats with a target price-point of around 50-pounds per bat. This figure is in sharp contrast to the current costs anywhere between 100 and 1,000 pounds per bat.

“Our research tries to address a socio-cultural problem of inclusion in sport through an engineering science solution, with bamboo innovation at the helm. But we are approaching it with an arts approach, focusing on user-centred design. What do players want from a cricket bat, and how can we deliver this,” explains Shah.

“While I very much hope bamboo bats will be a success story, I would like to dream that our work encourages a complete 'rethink' of cricket gear – what it is made of and from, how it is made, and how it is disposed of.

“I would love bats to be made from a diversity of wood materials, beyond willow, that are locally available and locally fabricated for people to play with,” says Shah, a former under-19 player for Thailand for whom this is a passion project that combines his work and hobby.

Shah notes that India as a “huge cricketing nation”, has the potential for more local timbers to become integrated into bat manufacturing. His research, published over four years ago, had highlighted a shortage of good-quality willow, which takes up to 15 years to mature.

“England has a long history of the sport, and yet bat making is ‘endangered’ on the UK’s Heritage Crafts list and comparatively little manufacturing of cricket bats takes place in England. It would be wonderful for automated, digital manufacturing to enable more bat making to take place in England,” notes Shah.

As the co-lead of the Centre for Natural Material Innovation and Associate Professor in Materials Science and Design at the University of Cambridge, the academic focuses on designing and innovating with natural materials by exploring low-energy methods of manufacture, improving structural performance, introducing multifunctionalities, translating across disciplines and application sectors.

“We always had a hunch that bamboo would make a beautiful bat; five years ago, we did some testing and made some prototypes and found that not only does that bat look beautiful, bamboo bats also perform rather well. This then led to an iterative cycle of design, making, testing, breaking, and re-designing. This new funding breathes new life into our work from the past five years, to take it into new directions,” he added. PTI AK NPK NPK