Tripura develops country's 'first-ever' bamboo made cricket bat, stumps

Agartala (Tripura) [India], November 1 : Bamboo and Cane Development Institute (BCDI) of Tripura along with North East Centre of Technology Application and Reach (NECTAR) claimed to have developed the country's first-ever bamboo made cricket bat maintaining all the standard protocols used for manufacturing cricket bats.
The officials have said that these bats can be used in all formats of cricket and await feedback from professionals for additional value addition. The product was designed in Tripura's Bamboo and Cane Development Institute using locally available materials.
The hard "Boom (local Name)" bamboo has been used to develop the bats. At the same time, bamboo wickets have been also designed from "Kanakaich (a local variety of bamboo)" which is nearly solid.
The product was recently placed in front of Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb for a presentation who lauded the team for the unique design of the bats and wickets.
"We have used the bamboo blue board technology to develop the product. Four to five months back, a Cambridge university paper first published a long article on the use of bamboo as a material to manufacture bats instead of the traditional system. The project was later taken up by NECTAR and the BCDI shouldered the responsibility to do the remaining work," said BCDI-NECTAR head Dr Abhinab Kant.
"We have devised the bamboo board technology and later given shape to the boards like the bats. Apart from that, we have also developed bamboo wickets using Kanakkaich bamboo which is nearly solid. The surface was cleared through the turning process and a cylindrical shape was given to the bamboo following the international standards of bamboo stumps," he added.
He further said that the bamboo bats would be sent to some professionals for their review and after that, the BCDI will share the technology with some local entrepreneurs or marketing agencies for commercial use and mass production.