We found out if modern cricketers can hit sixes with a bat from 1902

The health and safety warning goes out on the PA at Lord's. The ground is pretty deserted on training day for the London Spirit, but still there is caution because "range hitting" is about to start. Mind your head.

Advertisement

This, however, would be distance hitting with a difference. The two batsmen preparing out in the middle are guinea pigs for the next few minutes. They are about to prove whether modern, bigger, thicker bats truly make a difference.

For the sake of an experiment years in the planning, I hand them a bat made a few weeks ago but not to modern specifications. Instead it is an exact replica of the one used in 1902 by Gilbert Jessop to score England's fastest Test century from 76 balls, a target the Bazballers burnt themselves out trying and failing to beat.

So we are here to find out, can a modern player hit a six with Jessop's bat? Not the real one. That is under lock and key in the Lord's museum, although later, after donning a pair of white felt gloves I am allowed to hold it and compare the copy made for us by Gray-Nicolls in collaboration with Rob Lynch, the MCC head of cricket, who eagerly took up the idea when we proposed it.

Last year the club hosted a bat-making conference and is in charge of specifications for equipment.

Advertisement

Our two volunteers are James Coles, the most expensive buy in the Hundred auction at £390,000 and one of English cricket's most promising prospects. Joining him is Kiran Carlson, an opener, who just days before our filming had stuck a six on the roof of the Mound Stand.

These two will tell us whether it is possible for a modern player to hit properly with a 124-year-old bat. The answer? Not really. They both had a lot more respect for Jessop's achievement all those years ago after having a go with his bat.

We gave each six balls, thrown as full tosses to replicate range hitting and with permission of Karl McDermott, the Lord's groundsman. He paused his mower while we filmed and had a feel of the bat afterwards – we used a strip just to the side of the middle of the square. It was a clear, bright blue hot day: conditions perfect for whacking a six. The pair had just finished training with London Spirit so were warmed up and ready to go.

"It looks like a snooker cue," says Carlson on first feel of the bat. "I reckon more of a four-day bat."

Advertisement

The weight – 2lb 9oz – is an ounce heavier than the original in the museum and when you pick it up it does feel surprisingly weighty, despite being much slimmer than you would expect. Richard Gray, the family still runs the firm, arranged for exact measurements of the original but the bat maker added some weight to compensate for the drying out and aging process.

Compared with a modern bat, the weight is pretty similar. The difference is in the depth of the middle. Gray-Nicolls makes bats for Harry Brook and the thickness of the middle of his, at just under 3.8cm, is almost twice Jessop's bat. A modern bat has more wood in it at the same weight thanks to high-tech drying-out procedures. Jessop used a relatively heavy bat for his era, and a long handle – 4cm longer than Brook's – because he would shift his hands up and down depending on the shot he played.

It had one rubber grip – both players commented on how comfortable it felt in the hand – and surprisingly the bat was cut for a left-hander, despite the fact Jessop was right-handed. Bats of that era would often be shaved at the bottom. A right-hander would have the curved end nestled next to his foot in his stance. Jessop's is the opposite way round.

Would it make any difference for our two Hundred hitters? We were generous in abiding by modern six-hitting laws. In Jessop's day, to hit a six a batsman would have to hit the ball not only over the rope, but out of the ground. He struck 17 fours and a five in his 76-ball Ashes hundred but several flew into the crowd, a couple into the pavilion. But they only counted as fours. The law was not changed until 1910. We will allow Carlson and Coles a free pass on that.

Advertisement

Carlson opted to go first. Our judges decided he hit his first ball and last ball for six. I'm not so sure. Generous officiating in my eyes. But he did connect sweetly with the second. The rest lobbed up off the outside or inside edge.

Coles miscued his first but hit two in a row nicely out of the middle – both comfortable straight sixes. The rest? Let's agree they may have been duffed.

"Pretty small sweet spot, I don't know whether that was me or the bat," Carlson says. "Hurt the hand a bit when it didn't hit the middle, but it was better than I thought it would be. It is bottom heavy and not balanced like a modern bat."

Advertisement

For Coles it made him want his own bat back again. "Yes, we get more forgiveness now. I guess this would be good for training. We are very fortunate to get the bats we have now."

Overall, you can sense the difficulty they both had locating the sweet spot. There is much less forgiveness in the old bats and that is before we think about uncovered pitches and the prevailing mood of the era. Modern players are brought up to hit sixes. Jessop copped a lot of flak in his era from the press for getting out playing a big shot. Not much has changed. He was a Bazballer a century before some of them were even born.

Jessop used a Crawford's Exceller bat, which was produced by John Wisden, the Almanack was only a part of their cricketing empire at the time, and popular with many of the leading players of the era. Gray-Nicolls, in its lovely factory in the Sussex countryside, hand-make all its bats and relished the challenge of replicating Jessop's.

At their workshop, I pick up Brook's bat and it has a slight bow to it. Jessop's had a straight face. The current players prefer the bow for getting under the ball but it can only really be made properly by hand. At the Gray-Nicolls factory you can see the process from tree stump (rounds as they are called) to the final product. The very top of the range go for £1,000, although those are trophy bats mainly bought by wealthy Indian businessmen playing in San Francisco's Silicon Valley. The pros have other criteria, each individual in their own way.

Brook's bat is lovely and light and Jessop would have wreaked havoc with it. Brook is the one most likely to break his record now, and already has one off 80 deliveries. Jonny Bairstow came closest with a 77-ball century, but Brook will threaten it again. It would be more impressive if he could do it with this replica. There is a reason why Jessop's record has lasted so long; he could play. Despite the advances of modern technology, his achievement stands the test of time. Just ask Carlson and Coles.

Click here to read article