Sports Goods Design

Category: Consumer Misc

This is one of our first sports goods design projects. We were super excited to partner with this enterprising client who has been following the increasing popularity of Gully Cricket. Though it is not a formal sport yet in national or international levels, it is immensely popular in local levels where tournaments are played and star players are discovered.

Quick introduction to Gully Cricket

Gully cricket, also known as tennis ball cricket, street cricket, beach cricket, corridor cricket, garden cricket, backyard cricket (on the Indian subcontinent) and box cricket (in instances of shorter grounds), is an informal variant of cricket. It is typically played in various non-traditional venues such as gardens, backyards, streets, parks, carparks, beaches, and any area not specifically designed for the sport.

In terms of sports goods designs for such games, it is mostly a downgraded version of the formal cricket gear. The bat often is a cored out willow wood bat, the ball is mostly a tennis ball and that’s about it. Rest of the equipments are generally makeshift items.

Project Objective

The market size for sports goods design around gully cricket is huge, but there is NO formal and structured product category to cater to this market. The sports goods used are a downgraded version of the formal cricketing gear. The game is played with self made rules, and hence there was an opportunity to add some punch and excitement to the gully cricket. Since the ball used is tennis ball, the bat doesn’t have to be made in willow wood. Hence, we defined the project brief as one to develop a cricket bat inspired by tennis rackets. This would give the extra power and style to the game.

Incubation and Concept design

After brief research and incubation into cricket bats and its Important parameters, we set out to make quick concepts.

Concept Proposals

Recommended Concept

Engineering Analysis and Design for manufacturing

Carbon fibre was the obvious choice for the material of construction. However, the prototype was planned in aluminium so that it can be build, tested and validated. CG and sweet-spot calculations were critical to the design of bat so that the player gets the same feeling of the professional cricket bat.