I’m all for it: Pacer Hazlewood backs Ponting’s call to regulate bat sizes

Australia pacer Josh Hazlewood has backed former skipper Ricky Ponting’s suggestion that the size and weight of modern-day cricket bats should be regulated in order to restore balance between bat and ball in the Test format.

Australia pacer Josh Hazlewood has backed former skipper Ricky Ponting’s suggestion that the size and weight of modern-day cricket bats should be regulated in order to restore balance between bat and ball in the Test format.

Josh Hazlewood has backed former skipper Ricky Ponting’s suggestion that the size and weight of modern-day cricket bats should be regulated.(AFP)

“I’m all for it,” Hazlewood was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo. “Some of those cricket bats going around the dressing sheds at the moment are unbelievably big. Obviously David Warner, and Usman Khawaja has got a few big ones as well.

“I think it’s just the weight, as Punter has mentioned. You think it’s going to be so heavy, this big bat, but it picks up as light as any of the other bats. It’s just ridiculous.”

Recently, Ponting expressed that the longer format of the game is increasingly becoming a batsman-dominated sport due to modern-day cricket bats.

Read | I get worried when they’re really big, really light: Ponting on bat sizes

According to present cricket rules, only length and width of bats are limited and not the depth or weight. This has paved the way for the development of bats made from lighter materials but with thick edges such as one being used by big-hitting batsman Warner.

Ponting, who accumulated 13,378 runs at a staggering average of 51.85 in his 168 Tests, however, said that he didn’t have any issues with such bats in the shorter forms of the game as it “survives on boundaries - fours and sixes”.

He also said he would take up the matter in next week’s meeting of the MCC’s World Cricket Committee at Lord’s.

Hazlewood’s next assignment will be the tour of Sri Lanka, where Australia will play a three-match Test series.