The flat, paddle-shaped blade is made of a single piece of willow - preferably from trees grown in the English counites of Essex or Suffolk - while the handle is made of cane. "It's always interesting to see the intersection of superstition and science."Īlthough baseball bats have undergone a slow evolution over the past century, cricket bats have remained largely unchanged for 200 years. "It could be that their psychology is more important than the small differences between woods," he said. Although players have been rushing to embrace maple bats because they believe they perform better than ash, Smith's tests have actually found that ash actually has slighter higher performance metrics. "I tend to say pick whatever species of tree you want, just get the right density," said Smith. Although maple wood is denser than ash on average, and that would seem to make maple bats slightly stiffer and stronger, most bats made from maple still tend to end up about the same density as their ash counterparts. Now, around half of all players use maple bats, up from a tiny fraction in the 1990s.
#Khrycket in last wood professional
Over the past couple of decades many players have rushed to embrace maple, after Barry Bonds used bats made of maple to set his single season home run record of 73 in 2001 (Smith suggests that the performance-enhancing drugs probably had a bigger influence than the bat material, but professional athletes tend to be a superstitious bunch when it comes to equipment). The density of ash wood makes for bats that are heavy enough to have some power, but light enough to swing with good speed and control.
In a game where even the best hitters still miss two-thirds of the time, the ability to hit the ball at all is just as important as the ability to hit it far. A heavier bat is better for hitting the ball a long distance because it generates more kinetic energy than a lighter one does, but that comes at the expense of control - it may be easier to make contact with a lighter bat since the player can swing it more easily. The most important variable in a batter's swing, particularly when it comes to hitting home runs, is the speed of the swing, which players can improve by either getting stronger or using a lighter bat. More stories about sports science research from Inside Science The Aerodynamics of a Soccer Ball Why Training with Heavier or Lighter Baseballs Could Help Pitchers Throw Faster The Science of Sneakers: High-Tops vs. Over the course of the 20th century, however, ash became the dominant wood for bats, because it offers a good balance of weight, swing speed, and durability, says Lloyd Smith, a mechanical engineer at Washington State University.
In the early days of the sport, the bats tended to be much heavier than they are today and were made out of dense woods like hickory. The reasons for this are mostly to do with history and tradition (you'd be hard-pressed to find two sports more wrapped up in their traditions than these ones), but there are solid performance-related reasons as well.īaseball bats have gone through a few changes over the years. The sound itself is also subtly different in each country because the two sports use different woods in their differently shaped bats.
#Khrycket in last wood crack
(Inside Science) - The crack of a bat as it strikes a ball is the sound of summer in both the United States and the United Kingdom, albeit from a different sport in each - baseball in one, and cricket in the other.
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