In Modern day cricket, test cricket is played with red balls and other forms of cricket are played with white balls. In earlier days both test and one day cricket were played with traditional red balls. With day and night one day matches coming into existence, red balls became a problem under flood lights and so white balls were brought in to lime light. Cricket balls are dangerous which even caused death to some players and are hard enough to cause serious injuries.

Cricket balls are made out of leather, cork and yarn. Cork is tightly wrapped with yarn and made into a sphere. This sphere gives the required magnitude and weight to the ball. Leather is cut into circle and is put into machine and made into hemispheres.  The ends of the hemispheres are given stiches before inserting the cork. Once the hemispheres are ready, cork is put into the two hemispheres and joined and stitched together. Even today most of the tasks involved in ball making are done with hand. After the ball is finished, It is made spherical enough with the help of machines and polished.

Hemispheres made out of leather

Leather used to make cricket balls

Making the cork

Cork betweeen two hemispheres

Making the ball spherical and polishing

Stitching the two hemispheres after joining

Finished balls

Cricket balls need to follow some measurements in order to make it usable for international cricket. There are ICC regulations for weight and measurements of a ball. An usual cricket ball should weigh between 155 to 163 grams and circumference should be 224 to 299 millimeters.

Kookubura, SG , Dukes are the leading cricket ball manufacturers . Based on the country which is hosting which is hosting the match ball brands are chosen with the approval of the national cricket board.  Matches hosted by India are played with ball manufactured by SG.

BCCI approved SG balls

United Kingdom leads the cricket goods industry. The most established bat brands are from England. The major reason for this is, cricket bat is made of willow and willow is widely available here. English willow gives more quality than that of Kashmiri willow.  Here are some of the most widely used bat brands in the international cricket arena.

Slazenger is a British brand which manufactures sports goods. It is one of the oldest surviving sports goods manufacturers in the world. Great players used Slazenger bats in their career. Various named bats are available in markets from Slazenger. Players like Kallis, Collingwood and Michel Clarke use Slazenger bats.

Slazenger bats

Gunn & More widely called as GM bats are mostly widely used bat brands in the world. This is a British sports goods manufacturer.  Many England, Australian, Kiwi and South African players used and using GM bats. There is a very long list of cricketers who uses this brand in present cricket.

Shane Watson using GM bats

GM bats

Gray Nicolls is yet another British brand which is extensively used by West Indies, Australian and New Zealand players. These are stylish cricket bats whose labels give a royal look.

Chandrapaul with Gray Nicolls bat

Gray Nicolls bats

Kookaburra is bat brand which is used by few players in the world cricket, yet it is one of the famous brands. Legendary cricketer Ricky Ponting uses Kookaburra bats and Sanath Jayasuriya also used Kookaburra bats.

Ricky Ponting using Kookaburra bats

But the sub-continent cricketers use different brand bats which are based mainly in India and Pakistani cricketers use few Pakistani brands.

SG, SS, BAS Vampire and BDM are the famous brands in India. Indian players majorly use SG and SS brands. There are very few Indian players who use the above British brands.  Indian brand bats are also made with English willow. Some Indian players like Yuvraj, Sehwag use bats made of Kashmiri willow also.

Sachin using SS bat though front label shows Adidas

Raina uses SG bat

CA cricket bats, MB ( Malik bats) are the few Pakistani brands used by Pakistani cricketers.

Afridi using Malik bat

The labels like Puma, Adidas, Reebok, MRF and Hero Honda which we see on the bats or not the actual manufacturers, they are just sponsors of the kit to the players.