It’s all go. Stacks of pads, piles of gloves and wonderfully willowy heaps of cricket bats are positioned (strewn) around the office. There’s a faint sense of organised chaos, and a van downstairs with its engine running, Satnav set to NW8. It can only mean one thing: the annual AOC Gear Test is imminent.
On Thursday we’ll be joined at Lord’s by former England internationals Graham Gooch, Paul Nixon, John Emburey, Alex Tudor and Ali Brown, who’ll be running the rule over all the latest gear on the market.
Padding and protection are crucial of course, and they’ll be getting a good run out at the indoor school at HQ – choosing pads, gloves, helmets etc are not the sorts of decisions you want to get wrong. But the bats are very much the stars of the show, and definitely what our testers – among them some very firm strikers of a cricket ball – are most excited about examining. Good luck to those feeding the balls, because our experts won’t get bored of smashing them. They’ll be nothing if not thorough.
All the bats sent to us are stickerless – our testers won’t know which manufacturers are responsible for which blades – so, the test is pretty scientific. When you add the fact that between them our testers made over 91,000 first-class runs, their expert verdict will be worth listening to.
Joining the pros at the Home of Cricket will be our competition winner Rob Townsend, of Mansfield Hosiery Mills CC in the Nottinghamshire Premier League, a self-confessed kit “badger”. Enjoy, Rob.
A comprehensive run-down of all the latest gear on the market is included with the next issue of AOC (issue 90, on sale March 1) in the All Out Cricket Gear Guide. The results of the Gear Test (with the big reveal of the winning blade) will then be published the following month (issue 91, in shops April 5). Look out for exclusive video coverage of the day right here on the website – if only to remind yourself what Graham Gooch’s off drive looks like.
It’s going to be a good day. Be excited.
Spend three minutes on AOC’s cricket survey and be entered into a draw to win some fantastic prizes , here.
