Roland Butcher Training Bat No. 3

The creation of The Roland Butcher Cricket Training Bats, was a result of a 20-year professional cricket playing career. Throughout my First Class and International playing career, I had a technical problem with the balls that came back into me as a right handed batsman. This was a problem I was unable to solve during my playing career. It weighed heavily on my mind during and after my playing career. Following my retirement, I set out to design and produce a cricket training bat that would correct the problem I had in my playing days in order to assist future batsmen develop the batting skills required for elite performances.

The first bat I designed was for batsmen to train and master the in swinging delivery and off spin delivery coming in to the right handed batsman. This bat was then put through a long and rigorous testing phase, before I was satisfied with its performance and results. After successful trials of this bat, it occurred to me that the opposite is also true for players who have difficulty playing the ball the moves or spin away from the right handed batsman. At this point I designed another bat, for batsmen to train and master the away swinging delivery and leg spinning delivery going away from the right handed batsman. The third training bat was designed for mastery of playing spin bowling and fast bowling. 

During this time, I was a High Performance Coach with the International Cricket Council (ICC) under ICC High Performance Head Coach Bob Woolmer, the former England player and South Africa and Pakistan Head Coach. Bob Woolmer was the most innovated, technical, scientific and technology driven coach in world cricket. Following discussions with Bob Woolmer about the cricket coaching bats that I had designed, he advised me to have the bats scientifically tested at Loughborough University.

Loughborough University is one of the most advanced University in Science and Technology in the area of Sport. I registered the three designs in the UK in 2002. Later in 2002 the three bats went to Wolfson School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University for scientific study and testing.

In May 2004 Loughborough University produced a Thesis on the Cricket Training Bats. The Thesis confirmed scientifically that all the bats worked and produced the results that I had anticipated. The research was done with the England Academy players over a 2-year period and confirmed that the bats improved the performances of the batsmen significantly. The results also confirmed that the training bats also improved the accuracy of the bowlers significantly. This was a surprise to me, because all along I was only looking at the bats from a batting perspective

MARKET INFORMATION 

Currently there are no such products on the market. Cricket is the number two sport in the world with an estimated global following of 2.5 billion. This presents huge opportunities on a commercial level given its popularity. The participation levels would be significantly high around the world. There are currently 104 countries that are members of the International Cricket Council (ICC). The sport is governed by cricket boards that are responsible for all forms of cricket activity from grassroots to elite level. There are several cricket academies and training programs with the objective of increasing participation and building elite cricketers for greater competitiveness in world cricket. Each member nation is dedicated to improving its world ranking. Performance of national teams in minor and major tournaments is critical in achieving improved world status. 

TARGET MARKET 

Given the benefits of using these cricket training bats it is expected that they will be widely incorporated into training and development programs for all age groups. The following are the markets to be targeted:

• All ICC Member and Associate Member Cricket Boards 

• Directors of Cricket, High Performance Directors and Coaches of ICC member boards 

• Coaches of privately owned Cricket Academies 

• Coaches of major Cricket Clubs and Schools 

• International Cricket Franchises and their Junior Academies 

• Top International Batsmen