In the background are two of Narayanan’s key employees, Rajkumar Bhagat (68) and Sunny. Bhagat has been making bats since 1976, much before India put itself on the world map with the 1983 World Cup win.
“I was involved in making bats for the 1983 World Cup squad,” he says in his Punjabi-mixed Hindi, as he shows a picture of him and Kapil Dev examining a bat. “I made bats for Roger Binny, Madan Lal, Kapil Dev – all of them. I was a cricketer too, but couldn’t continue playing, so I got into bat making.”
Bhagat demonstrated the now-soaked bats, which he presses, so that the extra moisture content is removed from the bat. Then he picks up a hammer and hits the bat, showing how strong it has become. “It hardly takes two hours to make a bat but it needs time to rest and cool down and soak, so we do it in two days. The handles are exported from Singapore, as it’s made of Singapore cane,” says Rajkumar, with only 20 bats made in each batch to control quality.
While making Kashmir-willow bats is easier and also cheaper, nobody buys it here. “The willow comes from the UK. When I mailed the willow vendors there, they said there’s a waiting list of four years. Some of the cricketers I know and well-wishers helped me.”
