The cleft
A cricket bat starts as a wedge sawn out of a willow log — a cleft, about 700 mm long, wax-sealed on both ends so it dries slowly instead of splitting itself down the middle. Mine come in from a grower near Bury St Edmunds twice a year, air-dried a season on their side of the water and then another six months in the shed here before I put a plane anywhere near one. What you look for when you pick one up is straight grain running the length of the face, and a blade that is dry through the middle rather than just on the outside. I press it on a hand roller until the face is hard enough to take a new ball and no harder, shape it with a drawknife and a spokeshave, splice the handle in, bind it and finish it. There is no CNC in the building and nothing leaves here with a sticker on it.
