Cambridge bamboo cricket bat trial shows progress, but rules still bar its use

University of Cambridge researcher Darshil Shah has revised a bamboo cricket bat prototype to address its weight and durability, and a former professional player tried it at a Cambridge conference last week. Shah told The Guardian its performance is now fairly similar to willow. The trial offers feedback on a potential lower-cost bat, but the latest prototype has no published test results in the available reporting and cricket’s bat law still requires a wooden blade.

Shah, an associate professor in materials science and design, has worked on bamboo bats since 2019, according to The Guardian’s report published on 28 September. His project began after colleagues worked on laminated bamboo for buildings and he tried making bats from their offcuts. The more recent changes matter because the first prototypes were heavy and, by the team’s assessment reported by The Guardian, produced 30% more ball rebound than willow.

What the latest trial showed

The team removed material to reduce the bat’s weight and changed its processing to address layers of bamboo peeling apart, The Guardian reported. Shah said the resulting performance is now ‘fairly similar’ to a willow bat. He also said more work is needed on how bats should be tested, noting that cricket bats do not undergo the sort of testing applied to golf clubs.

Former Leicestershire and Sussex cricketer Abidine Sakande tried the prototype at Shah’s Innovation Sustainability and Access in Cricket conference in Cambridge last week. He told The Guardian that it felt ‘quite planky’ but had ‘a noticeable sweet spot when it connects’. Sakande also said it was not yet a finished product. The report identifies his assessment; it does not establish how many other people tried the bat or provide a formal performance trial for the latest version.

Cost and environmental questions

Shah sees a possible use for bamboo bats in schools and recreational cricket rather than at the professional level, The Guardian reported. The paper gave a bamboo cleft cost of £3 to £20 and said willow cleft prices had risen from £60 to £120 in recent years. Those reported figures suggest why makers might investigate bamboo, but they are not audited prices for finished bats or evidence that a commercial product is available.

The Guardian also reported estimates of 200 million regular cricketers worldwide, annual output of 500,000 willow clefts in the UK and 1.5 million to 3 million in Kashmir. It said Kashmiri farmers had replaced many willow plantations with faster-growing poplar. The figures and account of changing planting are reported estimates and claims; the cited material does not independently establish the scale of a global shortage. Shah’s concern, as he put it to the paper, is that bat costs are pricing people out of cricket.

Bamboo’s faster growth does not by itself settle the environmental case. Shah told The Guardian that a life-cycle assessment compared laminated bamboo, laminated willow and traditional willow bats. He said their processing impacts were fairly similar, while transport emissions were two or three times the impact of the bat itself. His account points to the importance of where materials are grown and bats are made; the assessment’s methods and results were not available in the cited sources, so it does not establish that bamboo has a lower total footprint.

A rule change still needed

Marylebone Cricket Club’s published Law 5 says a cricket bat blade must consist solely of wood. Bamboo is a grass, so the prototype cannot qualify under that requirement. A separate change announced by MCC is due to take effect on 1 October 2026: Type D bats made from up to three wooden pieces will be permitted in open-age recreational cricket, BBC Sport reported in February. That change expands the permitted use of laminated wooden bats; it does not approve bamboo.

The wooden-bat amendment shows how MCC is addressing equipment costs within its existing material rule. BBC Sport quoted MCC Laws manager Fraser Stewart saying the club had spent considerable time testing Type D bats with manufacturers and expected any performance advantage to be ‘marginal at best’. The BBC also reported that MCC was exploring other bat materials while considering their effect on the balance of play and possible injury risks.

For Shah’s bamboo design, the next hurdles are evidence and permission. The available account describes a revised prototype and Sakande’s response at a conference, but gives no published protocol or independently assessed results for that version. It records no commercial sales, routine match use or MCC decision to permit bamboo. Until those questions are resolved, the bat remains a development project rather than an approved substitute for willow in regular cricket.