The first warm up game is taking place out in the West Indies and with club nets starting around now for the new season I thought it might be worth checking out which England players are using what equipment. (I’m fully aware that they may not necessarily be using what is stickered on their bats, but lets pretend they are!)

• Captain Strauss – Managed to top edge the second ball of the tour using his Gray Nicolls Ignite, having moved to these bats from the Predator last summer.
• Vice Captain Cook – Wants to be like the captain and uses a Gray Nicolls Nitro, having previously used a powerbow. Gray Nicolls will be hoping for these two to have some good opening partnerships to give their bats good coverage!
• Ian Bell – Will be scratching round for runs using his new Adidas Incurza, having just followed KP to the Adidas stable. He’d be better off with a light saber.
• Kevin Pietersen – Had a high profile move to Adidas at the back end of last year and will be using the Adidas Pellara in the Caribbean.
• Paul Collingwood – A Slazenger player, Colly uses the i-blade to score some big runs just as he’s about to be dropped.
• Owais Shah – Scores a ton with his Kookaburra Blade in a warm up game, but will probably get overlooked incorrectly for one of the Slazenger boys.
• Freddie Flintoff – With the original Woodworm company not making it out of 2008, Freddie moved to Puma where he uses the pink Puma Evolution. Not the best colour for a bat, but I’m not going to argue with him!
• Matt Prior – Another Slazenger player, he uses the Air Blade like Bell did until this month, but generally with greater success.
• Tim Ambrose – Didn’t have a great time with his Kookaburra Ice last summer and will be lucky to get a chance to use it on this tour.
• Stuart Broad – A man after my own heart using a Gunn & Moore, he tries to be the (GM) Hero.
• Adil Rashid – A new entry into the squad, and another Slazenger user he’ll be hoping to get a chance with his Hyper Blade.
• Graham Swann – Back to the Gray Nicolls users, Swanny likes to biff the ball around with the GN Powerbow.
• James Anderson – Ever since he moved from Woodworm to Gray Nicolls and use the GN Nitro he turned into a decent lower order player – coincidence?!
• Ryan Sidebottom – Uses the re-introduced for the ‘08 season Gunn and Moore Cannon, when he’s playing and not injured.
• Steve Harmison – Has used Gunn and Moore’s of various models for a while now – he used to use the hero but now tries his slog sweeps with the GM Cannon.
• Monty Panesar – A bit of a loner with his choice of bat, Monty follows Ashley Giles’ path and uses a Hunts County Glory.

What can we tell from the above… well not a lot really since what they “use” is determined by their sponsorship package – so unsurprisingly most of the big names are represented. Looking for a bat for yourself – then you’ll probably start at one of these big companies, but don’t think that these are the only ones out there as there are plenty of smaller companies that can offer a more bespoke experience and you’ll come out with a great bat at the end of it. However, if you want to emulate your favourite England player you now know which bat you need to get!