Last year we had Adidas entering the cricket equipment market and now we have news that Nike is following suit, with a range of equipment coming to the UK for the 2010 season. Nike have made some cricket spikes, the Nike Air Zoom shoes for a couple of years now, although they have never been available in the UK unless you import them at a ludicrous price. Now they are set to bring along some bats, pads, gloves etc so that they can fight on the same territory as Adidas and bring another big brand name to the equipment party.

I haven’t got the details of where the equipment is coming from (ie their own factories or a third party), but with already some Indian’s playing with Nike badges on their bats I suspect there will be an Indian slant to the manufacture and distribution. Apparently their spikes will still be a stupid price, but being Nike they probably think they can get away with it.

I’m not sure where I sit with another big sports brand entering the market – something like this is normally a good thing, but is it true to say they bring quality products or do they just use their brand to make money without a care for the game? I’ll stick with using a “proper” cricket manufacturer for the moment I think….