Part 1

On the morning of the 22nd May 2009, almost six years to the day, the sports world woke up to news of a radical new cricket bat. The bat, originally codenamed the ‘Albert Trott’ in honour of the only cricketer to clear the pavilion at Lord’s, was in essence an oddly shaped paddle. It was the biggest innovation, in terms of appearance, to hit the traditional game in over 100 years. Yet less than 4 years later it disappeared from the Sky Sports screens, and the company behind it, Mongoose Cricket Ltd were plunged into administration. This is the tale of that bat, and my part in the story.

Launch

10 minutes of primetime BBC breakfast TV. Another 5 minutes on Channel 4 news. A discussion piece at watercoolers, cricket grounds and pubs. Such hype was unprecedented for a launch of a sporting product and particularly so for a launch set for the Friday before a Monaco Grand Prix and Rugby Cup Final.

5 minutes on C4 news covering the bat

The launch was set at Lord’s, the home of cricket. A location selected specifically to highlight the changing game of cricket and to lend credibility to this new, crazy cricket brand. The Lord’s Media Centre formed a perfect backdrop for the numerous press shots and interviews. Cricket was moving into the 21st century.

Stuart Law swings the bat at Lord’s on launch day

How I ended up at Mongoose

I, like most of the UK, woke up early on that Friday and saw the bat. Little did I know, within 3 days I would be moving to London and taking part in that wonderful journey.

I was obsessed with sports equipment. I cared more about what sports equipment the athletes used, rather than actually spending time in the game. After leaving school in Derby, aged 16, following my GCSE’s my first job was working on a farm in Crewe, for a family run cricket bat manufacturer called Fusion Sports.

The factory where I worked in Meerut, India for 2 months

For my 17th birthday, I flew out to India alone for 2 months to work in a factory shaving, shaping, stitching and sanding cricket equipment. And by the age of 17 1/2 I had twisted my parents arm to borrow some money, and founded my own cricket brand. Itias, a small company specialising in importing hand-made cricket bats from Pakistan and India.

Needless to say, there was nothing more I wanted to do than work in cricket. And when Marcus Codrington Fernandez (MCF) appeared on our screens, there was one place I wanted to be. I fired off an email to the company, and within 3 days I had been interviewed and had moved down to live in London. Albeit in a £25 a night B&B for the first month.

Early days

The first 6 months for any start-up is turbulent. But based out of a small, 3 person office in Primrose Hill, we set about turning the cricket world on it’s head.

Surprisingly, Mongoose had launched without any stock. The bats were all to be handmade to order by master craftsman of 50 years Tony Cook. This was our first problem. Tony, employed by Hunts County Bats, could produce approximately 5 bats per day for Mongoose. Unsurprisingly, a national launch, drove well over 40 bookings within the first couple of days of launch. The supply/demand problem, would prove to be an ongoing battle for Mongoose over the coming years as we tried to fight cash flow and keep customers happy.

Once the initial demand, driven by the launch and a single appearance by Derbyshire cricketer Stuart Law, had died down, there was a lull in orders. Like any business, if there is no PR or marketing — the customers will lose awareness. We heavily focussed on correcting this, and eventually, after a couple of months of trying secured a sponsorship contract with Dwayne Smith, a hugely talented West Indian all-rounder who was appearing for Sussex in the latter stages of the English T20 tournament.

All photoshoots should be of cricketers on fairground rides

Unfortunately for us though, we hadn’t considered that cricketers wouldn’t actually use our new ‘game changing’ cricket bat. In his first game for Mongoose, Dwayne used his regular bat restickered as our CoR3. The more traditionally designed bat. And for the year he was signed with Mongoose he used the headline grabbing MMi3 only once, in an exhibition game in Australia

Dwayne, like many of the cricketers we signed at Mongoose, was a hard hitting all-rounder. A match-winner. He was using another brands equipment at the time, however we managed to tempt him away with the promise of a massive increase in endorsement fees and some hefty bonuses around performances. Whilst in absolute terms, the figures were not massive — it would set the scene for our approach to sponsorship. We’d pay better than anyone..