It was the bat of the stylist, from Sobers to Dexter, Richards to Lamb, Bell to Mark Waugh… but now it’s the bargain blade from Sports Direct, and that upsets HUW TURBERVILL
Like jobs, or so the advice goes, it is good to chop and change your bat brands at the start of your career.
Of course they say the actual wood is the same, originating mainly from Kashmir or the Home Counties (Great Leighs in Essex is a hot spot, I am reliably informed)… it is just the stickers that vary.
I tried all the major brands before hitting adulthood. And I finally settled on Slazenger.
Like the classic cars, the striking panther was always a hallmark of quality for me.
They seemed unbeatably cool and stylish: the blade of choice; the weapon of heroes.
Majestic, swaggering, brutal Vivian Richards, his V500 – after he switched from Stuart Surridge and Duncan Fearnley – still filleting England as he peeled off crucial half-centuries against them in the 1991 Test series.
And Allan Lamb, the pint-sized defier, who in 1984 bravely counter-punched centuries off the West Indies’ fab four quicks with the classic V12 while other batsmen crumbled in their wake; he was like another diminutive-yet-powerful hero of mine at the time: Asterix, taking on his Roman oppressors.
Those Slazenger bats left an indelible impression on me as a youngster: clean, tanned wood, with a bold red V down the back. V for victory. V for resistance (have you watched the American sci-fi show of that name from that same year?). And V for Vendetta (see the comic book/film).
This most elegant of batons was then picked up by those most elegant of batsmen: Mark Waugh, who reminisced about them on Twitter recently, his old Slazengers lined up in his garage like the Terracotta Army of Xi’an. Who can forget the way he used it to such devastating effect for his 138 on Test debut against England at Adelaide in 1990/91?
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Imran Khan at the crease with a Slazenger bat
And Ian Bell, who announced himself to Test cricket with a crisp and neat, immensely pleasing debut innings of 70 against West Indies at The Oval in 2004, a knock I am so grateful to have witnessed in the flesh.
What I did not know when falling in love with cricket in the 1980s was that Slazenger had also been the bat of choice for Imran Khan, Rohan Kanhai, Frank Worrell and Garry Sobers, stylists supreme. But it certainly wouldn’t have done any harm in helping me make my selection!
Sir Geoffrey also used them. And while he rarely gave the ball a thrashing (save for the odd occasion like the 1965 Gillette Cup final when he thumped 146 against Surrey in 1965), the time he gobbled up at the crease is certainly testimony to the bats’ quality and endurance. In those days the stickers were green and white and they still looked lovely.
In researching this little love letter to my youth by trawling through the Getty Library, I also found pictures of Len Hutton, Don Bradman and Denis Compton Slazenger ‘Autograph’ bats.
Throw Neil Fairbrother, Mark Ramprakash and Carl Hooper into the mix and surely you must be convinced. They were the bats for cool cats all right. But actually hold on a minute… even that most stylish of sporting superstars, Severiano Ballesteros, used them.
There he is, in Surrey CCC whites, posing with a Slazenger bat near the pavilion at The Oval. He also used their balls, of course.
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And then there is Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger, wearing a burgundy Slazenger sweater (his personal choice) – how awesome can you get?
Glamorgan and England opener Steve James used Slazenger and retains a fondness for the brand.
“When I played against Sri Lanka at The Oval nearly the entire England team were using them: Stewie, Ramps, Hick, Crawley, Butch, me, Ben Hollioake,” he told me.
“Eric Loxton was the bat maker of Slazenger. If you had an E on the shoulder of your bat it was always a gun because it was made by him. He retired in about 2002, and now the bats are clearly machine-cut.”
“Yes Eric did make a lot of my bats,” said Waugh. “I remember visiting the Slazenger factory in Barnsley and I was like a kid in a lolly shop.”
James also remembers it being a popular brand at his father’s sports shop, Peter James Sports, in Lydney, Gloucestershire, which he had owned for 25 years.
It must have helped that the bats I had were light and had a decent middle, of course. No one stays loyal to a plank.
Until recently I used a V1200, which had a lovely pick up and sweet spot, and I was also thrilled to buy an old-school V12 in a charity shop for a tenner a year or two back. I only batted with it once as it was a Harrow (one size down from adult), but in my opinion I have never looked better.
Ian Bell began life as a Slazenger man
So what happened?
Well… I do not want to turn this into a personal rant, but Mike Ashley happened. Yes he bought Slazenger for Sports Direct in 2004.
This is certainly not the time nor the place to discuss his stewardship of Newcastle United; nor the merits of zero hour contracts; but the fact that Slazenger has become the economy-class cricket manufacturer fills me with a degree of sadness.
Of course Slazenger still has a role to play. I am trying not to sound like a snob. Many players want to play only occasionally, but not spend a fortune. Not everybody can be Kevin Keen when it becomes to our beloved summer sport. If an affordable bat gets a youngster playing, that is a good thing.
But in becoming the budget bat Slazengers are rarely used by the pros (James Anderson, Steve Finn and Jason Roy have all departed in recent years) and that is a shame. The Slazenger V600 (£374.99) and V500 (£499.99) still look nice, as does the classic, untampered-with V12 (£115), but it is not quite the same as seeing the greats use them in those golden decades.
Before cricket the company was already a legend in tennis since its founding in 1881 by brothers Ralph and Albert Slazenger, from a German-Jewish family living in Manchester. It has provided balls for Wimbledon since 1902.
They opened a shop in London's Cannon Street, and had particular expertise with Indian rubber which saw them pressed into emergency action in the War: making machine gun butts, bayonet grips, driving and boxing gloves and machete sheaths for the Allies. Slazenger and cricket became commercial bed fellows in 1930. It was sold to Dunlop Rubber in 1959, then Sports Direct for £40m.
Who knows, maybe Ashley will sell up, like he – at long last – appears to be doing with the Toon Army.
Maybe once again the flashing blade of Australia or England’s finest batsman with a V on its back will glint in the sunshine as it finds the boundary at Lord’s.
Let us hope this once-glorious brand’s elite reputation is salvageable.
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Posted by David Knox on 05/11/2024 at 11:33
Hey mate I have a early 2000s v100 masterblaster wanted to know if it would be worth anything
Posted by Trevor Anthony Rautenbach on 26/04/2024 at 12:47
Good afternoon, You forgot to mention Jacques Kallis who also played with Slazenger for many years
Posted by Dean on 27/03/2024 at 15:53
Yes sad demise. I used to work for Dunlop Slazenger and was not only Cricket but all the other famous brands too that covered golf, tennis ,badminton ,table tennis, squash etc. These all ended up in Sports Direct some with bells and whistles. So sad to see this iconic name in such a place
Posted by Marti J. Powell on 25/11/2023 at 22:53
Slazenger - the fastest brand in the world https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/389099-fastest-5m-by-a-rubber-band-car Slazenger + Marti = Officially Amazing
Posted by Graham Mather on 07/09/2023 at 11:42
Hi , I have a Slazenger WG bat the type used by Kapil Dev (mongoose style) . I cant see one up for sale or find a value (or many pictures (apart from the Kapil Dev 1) . Any ideas
Posted by Gareth Barnes on 27/07/2023 at 18:58
I too had a V100 waugh zone xl I think I scored more runs with that bat than all my others put together. Incredible piece of Willow...I'll never another
Posted by Ian Antley on 02/06/2023 at 00:43
I bought a V100 in 1989 and a V500 in1991 which I then used until I retired in 2013. I started with the 100 but found the balance of the V500 to be perfect for me and scored a lot of runs with it. I tried other brands but always came back to the V500, it's sad to hear that Slazenger are not the force they once were.
Posted by Matt Brophy on 30/05/2023 at 10:54
My parents bought me a V100 XL Waugh Zone beauty back in 1996 and I'm still using it 27 years later. It's an amazing bat that's only had a handle replaced some 18 months after I got it.
Posted by Ian Callister on 04/09/2021 at 15:56
I still have my Slazenger Denis Compton Junior cricket bat that I was given for my 10th birthday in 1954. I scored a few hundred runs with that as a youngster😄
Posted by Mark Lorne on 03/06/2021 at 12:08
Still got my "Geoffrey Boycott plays..." Slazenger bat that i used when i top-scored with 34 in the 4th year vs. Staff match at Old Buckenham High School. I think it cost me 14 quid of my hard-earnt pocket money! At the time Slazenger was the must-have bat.
Posted by Jeff on 12/12/2020 at 15:17
Even bigger problem than Ashley is the proliferation of shoemakers who have taken over the cricket bat world. Adidas, Nike, Puma, and especially New Balance, do not employ a single batmaker between them, they just mass import from India with their labels stuck on them, and sell bats much cheaper than traditional batmakers. They have pretty much killed off Duncan Fearnley and Gunn&Moore, while Slazenger and Kookaburra have fired all their batmakers and gone the New Balance route of getting Indian companies from India to make all their bats - there is only really Gray-Nicolls of the traditional big name batmakers still making bats, with smaller independant batmakers making most of the quality gear nowadays.
Posted by Andy on 08/09/2020 at 15:13
Also Donnay and Head iirc. Amongst others.
Posted by Brad Naidoo on 05/09/2020 at 01:18
Jacques Kallis derserved a mention somewhere here... one of the last internationals to retire while still using a Slazenger bat... Great article.. Slazenger was certainly a hallmark of quality and English craftmanship... I started with a V100 Poly-Armor Coated plank... .. Then a V100 Ultimate XL-Extreme "Waugh Zone", a V800 Select... .. and my last, but best, my SXi Ultimate... That Union-Jack Sticker on it speaks volumes.. But Slazenger were on the ropes well before 2004... ... too many cosmetic changes every season... They didn't understand their market.. Kids wanted there kit to stay trendy, but building a 'matching' kit took time.. a few seasons sometimes.. ..and when the new seasons gloves, don't match last season's pads, or the previous season's bat... Well... budget buyers will start looking elsewhere.. yes, they were buying the wood, but paying for the stickers... till the stickers didn't matter anymore because they were changing too often..
Posted by Richard Eaton on 04/09/2020 at 23:04
Hmmmm regret to inform you but you do come across like a snob. Not for the first time I have felt you are that way inclined. However the content was somewhat interesting. Hope you offered equal column inches to all other major bat makers so that they too can make the case for their product. Good to get the magazine once again in the mail back across the pond. Thanks
Posted by Murray Hedgcock on 04/09/2020 at 19:50
With due respect, I could never take Slazenger bats seriously, for the reason given passing mention by Huw - to my mind, the brand represented tennis. From playing tennis at modest level in Forties Australia, to enjoying the privilege of reporting Wimbledon for thirty years from 1970, Slazenger was primarily a representative brand of racquet, at first alongside Dunlop, and then one of many. I wanted a bat with a cricketing dimension - Gunn and Moore, Wisden, and so on. What's in a name? Plenty, I suggest.
Posted by Mike Hamilton on 04/09/2020 at 16:53
For many years I used a Senior County bat; made by a small firm called Clough & Ward up in Drighlington in Yorkshire; where good cricket bats should be made! Many friends and acquaintances used to ask me where can I get a bat like yours; so in the end I made a trip to their factory which from what I remember was a large shed with a corrugated roof next door to a pub and I bought a number of bats which I had in the boot of my car. Mr Ward senior was a delightful man well into his 80's and he and his son ran the business, but I suppose like all others it faded as the big boys took over!
Posted by Sanjeev on 04/09/2020 at 08:20
Sachin Tendulkar used a Slazenger too for a long time. So did Saurav Ganguly and Rahul David in their debut test series.
Posted by Rupert on 03/09/2020 at 13:51
Eric Loxton was chief bat maker for Slazenger’s at their factory in Horbury sort of between Wakefield & Barnsley. He also opened the batting for Dkazengers in the Central Yorkshire league. After they stopped playing league cricket they continued as a very strong junior set up before that ceased and Wakefield Thornes picked up from where they left off & became one of the best clubs in Yorks. U mention Bradman. In his scrapbook diaries it mentions him visiting his bat maker during the Headingley test in the 30’s & it was Sykes in Horbury. I presume Slazenger bought them out?
Posted by Luke on 03/09/2020 at 09:47
It was very cool until the Sherminator started using one.
Posted by Jamie Aspinall on 03/09/2020 at 05:53
Loved the slazenger , I had a v100, which I thought was great. Although when I was struggling a bit in a particular innings , I was sledged by the slips cordon, calling my bat the V snick which I though was clever
Posted by Trevor Warburton on 02/09/2020 at 17:54
Great bats. I used them in 7os and 8s
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