When is the best time to buy cricket equipment online or instore. 

We sell cricket gear all year round. In the midst of a wet and windy October we will often be helping someone select a new cricket bat, set of pads and even cricket spikes. For us, cricket is an all year sport that never stops being in demand.

When it comes to buying new kit, especially cricket bats were often asked the best time to do this. Well the obvious answer would be anytime is a good time, but with cricket bats it’s always good to buy a bat so you have enough time to prepare it before your first game or net session. All cricket bats, even those that are shown to be fully prepared and ready to play, in our opinion need to be knocked in. Ideally, two very light coats of oil to the exposed areas of the bat and then four hours of knocking in with a good quality mallet, will send you on your way to bat that not only performs well but will last longer to.

The knocking in process should be done over a period of time so as to allow the willow to expand and move around and then settle again during each knocking in phase. Out of the 4 hours we usually suggest 2 1/2 hours is allocated to the edges and the toe and the balance to the middle of the bat. Following this procedure will mean your bat is in perfect condition to start playing with.

So as we write this article we are coming to the end of January, which is therefore the ideal time to buy it but as with some time to go before the start of the season it give you adequate preparation time as well as the chance to have a few net sessions with it too. For those purchasing later in the season it’s not the end of the world, are you still going to be able to follow the same preparation procedure.

Again when it comes to buying the pads and gloves, if you can buy them a little bit earlier, it just gives you a chance to perhaps break them in when sitting at home watching TV, you could put the gloves on for awhile and this gives you a chance to break them in before your first game. Having said that however we find that nowadays the quality of batting gloves has inproved greatly and the materials are so soft that they hardly need any breaking in.

So it’s always a good time to buy cricket equipment, but with bats we just suggest enough time to knock in and prepare your bat properly.