Where do we source our willow?

This is one of the questions I get asked more than any other, which is fair enough. Cricket bat making is an extremely competitive industry, often full of secrecy and, in some cases, white lies and half truths. The quality of a cricket bat starts long before it ever reaches the vice, and the willow you begin with determines most of what follows. As a UK cricket bat maker, I’m clear about where my materials come from because if you care about how a bat is made, you deserve to know what it’s made from.

Every bat I make starts with English cricket willow, Salix alba caerulea. I don’t mix sources, I don’t blend timbers, and I don’t use imported alternatives. English willow has been the benchmark for cricket bats for generations because it offers the right balance of weight, strength and response when it’s grown and prepared properly. When people talk about the feel of a traditional cricket bat, this is what they mean. That consistency matters, because it means I know how the wood will behave during shaping and pressing, and how it will perform once it’s in a player’s hands.

All of my willow is sourced exclusively from English Willow, a specialist grower, buyer and cleft maker based here in Oxfordshire. They work directly with farmers and landowners across the UK to grow willow specifically for cricket bat making. Trees are planted, maintained and harvested with the long term in mind, and every tree that’s felled is replaced as part of a sustainable cycle. Willow takes time, often fifteen to twenty years, and that patience shows in the quality of the English willow clefts used to make my bats.

I choose to buy exclusively from English Willow because it gives me the maximum level of control over what I’m buying. I know where it’s grown, how it’s processed and exactly what I’m taking into the workshop. Some UK bat makers, and many overseas brands particularly in Australia, buy their English willow through India or Pakistan. Sometimes it’s part made, sometimes it’s even sold as raw clefts. For a UK cricket bat brand, that makes no sense at all. English willow is our product, grown in our country. For some Australian makers it can be cheaper due to shipping logistics, but for UK brands it’s madness.

One of the biggest advantages of working locally is that I’m able to go to English Willow and hand select my own clefts more or less whenever I need to. Instead of ordering large batches of cricket bat willow and paying for haulage, I can visit, choose the exact pieces of English willow I want, and take them back to the workshop myself. That means no guesswork, no unwanted stock sitting around, and no money wasted transporting timber I don’t need. It also allows me to select willow specifically for the handmade cricket bats I’m making and for the type of players I know my customer base to be.

Avoiding unnecessary haulage, bulk orders and middlemen helps keep costs under control. That saving is reflected directly in the price of the bats. By sourcing English willow locally and selecting it in person, I can keep OX29 running efficiently and keep prices as low as I realistically can, without compromising on materials or workmanship. That’s one of the reasons players looking for custom cricket bats in England can still access genuinely handmade bats without paying inflated brand prices.

Cricket depends on willow, and looking after that resource matters. Working with growers who replant, manage land responsibly and think long term ensures that English willow remains available for future generations of players and bat makers. It’s not about ticking boxes, it’s about respecting the material that makes the game possible.

There have been many cases within the industry of brands sourcing from overseas suppliers who deal in English willow alongside Kashmir, Serbian, Dutch and other willow varieties. English willow commands the highest sale value, and where oversight is poor, foreign willow has been known to find its way into so called English willow orders. That has never happened to me, because I’ve never sourced English cricket willow from outside England.

You may have seen recent coverage around the law change announced by the Marylebone Cricket Club, which will allow laminated or multi piece cricket bats to be used in parts of the recreational game. This change has been widely framed as a move to reduce waste and improve sustainability. From my position as a small UK cricket bat maker who works directly with English willow, that narrative doesn’t really wash.

At the bat maker level, laminated cricket bats do not reduce waste. Any so called waste reduction happens earlier in the supply chain with willow merchants. Smaller clefts that may previously have been chipped, sold cheaply or used in other forms can now be glued together, turned into laminated bats and sold at a higher price in raw form. That’s a commercial shift, not a sustainability one.

Laminated bats also involve more manufacturing steps than traditional single blade English willow bats, ignoring the handle. They typically use cheaper materials in the back sections and because of the added labour involved, they will almost certainly be made where labour is cheapest. That means overseas, not in small UK workshops producing handmade cricket bats.

This is where the change becomes a real concern for independent UK bat makers. Lower grade single piece English willow bats are often the entry point for players buying from small workshops. With laminated bats now legal, those players may be tempted by cheaper laminated alternatives, mass produced overseas, that undercut traditional English willow bats on price. That directly affects sales at the small maker end of the market.

For large brands, this law change is a win. They have the scale, overseas factories and distribution networks to flood the lower price end of the market with laminated bats. In effect, it allows them to tussle back sales of lower grade bats from small UK makers, using lower retail prices made possible by cheap labour and mass production.

For small workshops like mine, that isn’t a level playing field. This isn’t about resisting change or protecting tradition for the sake of it. It’s about recognising that this shift favours scale and overseas manufacturing and places real pressure on UK based craftsmanship. I didn’t have to enter this industry, there were already plenty of makers. I did it because it’s my passion and because I want to make a difference and cut through a lot of the bullshit. This new rule is an existential threat to that.

It’s also important to be clear that there isn’t a shortage of willow itself. What there is a shortage of is cheap willow. Increased demand has driven prices and that pressure has helped push this law change.

For me, nothing changes. OX29 bats will continue to be made from single piece English willow, hand selected at source and made properly in the workshop by a UK cricket bat maker who cares about how bats should be made.