BEFORE
the bat. Earlier, it was mainly about the sweet spot.
“The basic idea is to have more wood behind the ball in your preferred shots. More wood at the bottom will help in elevation and generate more power.
“When your game is set, bowlers come up with a plan to counter and the batsman has to get a new plan. Or, it could be to play a particular shot better,” he said.
Leading bat manufacturers BAS (Beat All Sports), who ear- lier helped Dhoni with his bats, analysed it, and saw it as a modification to suit the conditions.
“It differs from wicket to wicket, country to country. In India they use different bats, prefer heavier (bats) because the ball comes slower on the slow wickets; on faster wickets, they prefer lighter blades for better timing. Dhoni’s bat weighs around 1150gms,” says BAS partner Ashwini Kohli, who has earlier made bats for Dhoni. He prefers 1250gm bats in India, he said.
Around 8-10 bats have been made according to Dhoni’s specifications. At the moment, Dhoni is the only batsman experimenting with circular bat toes. Given the positive results, it is with this new weapon that India’s double World Cup-winning skipper will head into the final big event of his career – the World Cup. If he succeeds at the mega event, one can be sure we will have more batsmen trying the new shape.