Salix Cricket

In the late 1970's, Andrew Kember cut down a willow tree on his father's farm, fashioned a handle from cane drain rods and wellington boots and made his first cricket bat. This initial attempt earned him an apprenticeship with John Newbery, with whom he remained until the latter’s untimely death. These early years not only harnessed his unusual talent, but also gave him crucial grounding in all aspects of willow production.

In 1990, Andrew founded The Salix Cricket Bat Company with cricketer, businessman and friend Hugh Betts. In 1992, Ian Carey joined the company to work with Andrew in the intensive sanding and finishing which has become such a signature of Salix bats. In 1996, Andrew's wife Victoria joined to remove bats from filing trays and manage the administration, design and marketing of the fledgling company.

Today the brand remains unusually true to its origins with these four core members still working together to achieve Salix quality. Our newest recruit is Jenny Kember, Andrew’s sister, whose talents are already proving extraordinary in bat making and finishing. We remain a small, uncompromising, artisan business manufacturing unusually fine English cricket bats which sit on the shelves of the UK’s leading cricket specialists, next to many mass produced and imported bats. Without major player endorsement or massive advertising campaigns, the bats are in greater demand than we can manufacture. It is of this that we are most proud and which inspires us to keep pushing the design and manufacturing merit of the brand.

Although our bats are handmade, the most intensively of any cricket bats available, we have never characterised our brand or the bats as simply ‘handmade’. To achieve this level of design, performance and finish involves skilled hand work, but also fastidious and precise machining, ongoing design of tools and machines, constant development of ideas, shapes and finishes… all underpinned by an unrivalled apprenticeship in all aspects of willow processing. The profiles created are fluid and sculptural, obtained through layers of exacting processes, coupled with instinctive understanding of the raw materials and a sculptor’s instinct at the bench. Good bat making is a kind of alchemy: turning basic, natural raw materials into something very special. We hope that the bats embody this and that our passion and dedication shine through in their quality of design, finish and performance.