10/05/2026
How Cricket Gear Has Changed in the Last 100 Years
(And Why Modern Players Have Never Had It So Good)
If Don Bradman walked into our store today and picked up a modern grade-1 English willow bat, he would not recognise the thing in his hands. The wood would be lighter than he expected. The edges would tower above the spine. The pickup would feel impossibly balanced. And the bottom hand grip would be made of a polymer he had never seen.
Cricket has always been a game played with a hard ball, on hard ground, against fast bowlers who do not particularly care about your safety. What has changed over the last hundred years is everything between the player and that hard ball. Bats, pads, gloves, helmets, shoes — every piece of gear has been quietly re-engineered, tested, and refined to give batters more time, bowlers more spring, and everyone more protection. This is the story of that evolution, and why the kit you can walk out of a cricket shop with today is genuinely the best in the history of the sport.
The Bat: From Hand-Shaped Willow to Computer-Graded Blades
A 1920s cricket bat is a museum piece for a reason. It was hand-shaped from a single piece of willow by a cabinet-maker, weighed somewhere between 2 lb 2 oz and 2 lb 6 oz, and had a sweet spot the size of a 50-cent coin. The edges were thin. The spine was modest. There was no science to where the meat of the bat lived — you just trusted the maker and hoped the grains ran straight.
Through the 1950s and 60s, the bat industry was dominated by English manufacturers like Gunn & Moore, Stuart Surridge, and Slazenger. Bats were oiled with raw linseed, knocked in by hand for hours, and expected to last several seasons. Pickup was heavy. The handles were often a single piece of cane bound in twine.
The real revolution started in the 1970s. Dennis Lillee’s infamous aluminium bat in the 1979 Perth Test was banned within an over, but it was a signal that batters wanted more. Through the 1980s and 90s, manufacturers began experimenting with bigger profiles, deeper edges, and lighter pickup. Brands from the subcontinent — MRF, SG, SS, CEAT — entered the global market with English willow blades pressed in India and Pakistan, often at lower prices than UK-made equivalents.
The 2000s brought the era of the “big bat.” MRF’s Genius (most associated with Sachin Tendulkar), Gray-Nicolls’ Powerspot, GM’s Icon, and SS’s Master series pushed edge depths from around 25mm to over 38mm. Hollowed-back bats, scalloped backs, and concave shaping let manufacturers redistribute weight without making the blade heavier in the hand. A bat that felt like 2 lb 8 oz could now hit like 2 lb 12 oz.
The ICC eventually had to step in. Since 2017, bats are restricted to a maximum 38″ length, 4.25″ width, 67mm depth, and 40mm edges — the cap on edges was the headline change, because edges had been creeping up year on year. Today’s premium bats from MRF, SG, SS, CEAT, GM and New Balance are built right at those limits, with computer-graded willow, machine-pressed faces, and weight-balanced spines.
The materials are old. The engineering is new.
Pads: When Protection Stopped Being Heavy
Cricket pads in the 1920s were canvas tubes filled with cane and bamboo strips, lashed to the leg with leather buckles. They were heavy when dry. They were much heavier when wet. They absorbed impact, but mostly by absorbing it into your shins.
For most of the twentieth century, pad design barely changed. Buckles became more reliable. Stitching improved. The basic anatomy — three vertical canes, a knee roll, a thigh flap — stayed the same from W. G. Grace’s era through to the 1970s.
The change came from the materials industry, not the cricket industry. High-density foam (HDF), originally developed for the automotive and aerospace sectors, started appearing in cricket pads in the late 1980s. Velcro replaced buckles. Lightweight nylon mesh replaced canvas on the inside of the pad, where it sits against your leg.
Today, a top-end pair of batting pads from SG, SS, MRF, or Shrey weighs less than 1.2 kilograms for the pair. They use multi-density foam — softer foam against your shin to absorb impact, denser foam in front to spread the force, and reinforced bolsters at the knee where you most need it. They are shaped, not just stuffed. They breathe. They dry quickly. And they protect against deliveries that come at you 20–30 km/h faster than what Bradman ever faced.
Gloves: From Sausage Fingers to Engineered Padding
Old cricket gloves are unmistakable. Each finger was a separate padded tube — the so-called “sausage” design — with no joint, just a long cushion of cotton wadding inside a leather sheath. They were bulky, hot, and made it very difficult to actually feel the bat handle.
The redesign came in two waves. In the 1990s, manufacturers introduced jointed fingers — pre-curved padding around the natural articulation of your hand, so you could grip without fighting the glove. Then through the 2000s, designers replaced bulk foam with engineered impact materials: HDF inserts, gel pockets at the knuckles, and reinforced thumb protection.
Today’s premium batting gloves use sweat-wicking inner liners, low-profile cuffs that do not interfere with your wrist position, and finger padding that is genuinely shock-rated. Wicketkeeping gloves have evolved even further, with rubber palms, contoured webbings, and reinforced first-finger protection that lets you take a 140 km/h ball cleanly.
A side benefit nobody talks about: modern gloves do not turn into wet bricks the way old leather gloves did. Junior players especially benefit from this — a 12-year-old in 1965 had to wear gloves designed for an adult; a 12-year-old in 2025 has gloves designed for a 12-year-old’s hand.
The Helmet Revolution: From Bare Heads to Carbon-Fibre Shells
For most of cricket’s history, the helmet was simply not a piece of equipment. Players faced 90 mph bowling in cloth caps. The first widely worn protective headgear in international cricket was Mike Brearley’s “skull cap” in 1977 — really just a padded panel taped under his cap. The first proper helmet was Dennis Amiss’s hockey-derived shell in 1978, and even then, several batters refused to wear one out of pride.
The 1980s normalised helmets, but the design was crude — thick foam, basic fibreglass shells, fixed metal grilles that often distorted on impact. Through the 90s and 2000s, helmets got lighter and better-ventilated, but the fundamental design did not change much.
The tragedy that re-engineered the modern helmet was the death of Phillip Hughes in 2014, struck on the back of the neck by a bouncer he could not see. The British Standard BS7928:2013 was rapidly updated. Cricket Australia and the ICC mandated neck protectors at all professional levels. Helmets had to be tested against modern ball speeds — not the 60–70 mph standards of the 1980s, but the 90+ mph reality of contemporary fast bowling.
A 2025 helmet from Masuri, Shrey, or SG looks superficially similar to a 1990s helmet. Underneath, it is a different machine. Carbon-fibre shells. Multi-density EPP foam liners. Tested grilles with locked screw positions. Detachable, certified neck protectors. Better ventilation. Better fit. And critically, every certified helmet sold in Australia today carries the BS7928:2013 marking — which means it has been hit at speed, in a lab, and passed.
A young player picking up their first helmet today has access to safety standards that did not exist for the entirety of the twentieth century.
Footwear, Balls, and Everything Else
The smaller pieces of gear have all been quietly upgraded too.
Cricket shoes evolved from canvas plimsolls with hand-driven tacks for grip into engineered spikes. Modern bowling boots have carbon midsoles, reinforced toe caps, and replaceable forefoot studs that grip turf without ripping it apart. Batting shoes use rubber compounds borrowed from running and tennis, so junior players get traction without the bulk.
Cricket balls have become more consistent. The Kookaburra, Dukes, and SG balls used at international level today are made to tighter manufacturing tolerances than the balls of the 1950s ever were. The pink ball — invented for day-night Test cricket in 2015 — is itself a piece of gear that simply did not exist a decade ago.
Protective gear has expanded too. The abdominal guard (“box”) that was considered novel in the 1920s is now joined as a basic kit item by inner thigh pads, outer thigh pads, chest guards, arm guards, forearm guards, and mouthguards. None of these were standard issue for the great players of the 60s and 70s.
What Today’s Players Take for Granted
Walk into a cricket store in Australia today — or browse a site like ours — and you will find a pair of batting pads that weigh less than your school backpack. A bat with edges thicker than the entire profile of your grandfather’s bat. Gloves that breathe. A helmet that has been tested at speeds your grandfather’s bowlers could not reach. Shoes designed for your specific foot type. Custom-made guards for every body part you might want to protect.
The hardware behind the modern game is unrecognisable from the hardware of a hundred years ago. And while the rules of cricket have stayed remarkably stable across that century, the experience of playing it — how it feels to face a quick bowler, how confident you can be in your equipment, how much of your attention you can give to the ball rather than to your own protection — has been transformed.
Conclusion: The Best Time to Pick Up a Bat
Cricket has always rewarded players who put in the work. What has changed is how much of that work the gear now does for you. Computer-graded willow and engineered foams and carbon-fibre shells will not make you Steve Smith. But they will give you the foundation — the protection, the pickup, the confidence — that Bradman, Lillee, and Border had to earn the hard way.
If you have not upgraded your kit in five years, you are playing a different game to the one being made today. Drop into SSR Sports at 2 The Ridgeway, Pakenham, or browse our full range online at ssrsports.com.au — we stock premium gear from MRF, SG, SS, CEAT, GM, New Balance and more, all hand-picked, expertly knocked in, and ready to play.
There has never been a better time to pick up a bat.
SSR Sports is a specialist cricket retailer based in Pakenham, Victoria, serving club, school, and professional cricketers across Australia. Visit us at 2 The Ridgeway, Pakenham VIC 3810, or follow us on Instagram and Facebook /ssrcric.
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