Australian great Ricky Ponting has called for more regulations on the size to weight ratio of cricket bats.
Ponting says he is suprised at how light some of the large bats are that are being used by batsman these days.
“I don’t know how they are doing it to make the size of bats they are making now,” Ponting said at an Australian Cricket Society function.
“The modern day bats and weight in particular — it’s just a completely different game.
“Full credit to them. If they are there use them, if there’s a better golf club or tennis racquet everyone will use it. It’s nothing against the players.
“If you are strong enough to use them that’s fine, but you should not get a bat that’s bigger in size than (MS) Dhoni’s but a whole lot lighter. Chris Gayle’s the same. Everyone talks about Chris Gayle’s bat size, but it’s 3½lbs (1.59 kgs). He’s big enough and strong enough to use it. I only get worried when they are really big and really light.”
Ponting even took the step of suggesting that bats over a certain size should be banned from the Test arena.
“I am going in a couple of weeks for a World Cricket Committee meeting and that will be one of the topics talked about," he said.
“I don’t mind it (big bats) for the shorter versions of the game. I would actually say you’ve got a bat you can use in Test cricket and a certain type of bat you can use in one-day cricket and T20 cricket.
“The short forms of the game survive on boundaries — fours and sixes — whereas the Test game is being dominated too much now by batters because the game is a bit easier for them than it was.”
