The Sky'er' is the limit

I remember the first time I played with a cricket ball, sometime when I was 11 or 12 in a 7A vs 7B match, scoring 10 odd. Back then,while fielding. the sight of the ball hurling towards you, at presently innocuos speeds, would cause you to move your hands away from the ball in the last second- obviosuly a very very stupid thing to do. The high catches were especially scary. I remember how I'd wriggle my hands in pain, thanks to some awful catching technique.

The catches weren't even remotely high back then. It's just that we were scared- and scared as hell. Personally,a lot has obviously improved in the 13 yrs since then.

So has the equipment( though I haven't used this stuff and would love to). Check this thing out- it's called the Fusion Skyer- a new and revolutionary practice bat, made from some patented German rubber cut into a smaller bat two-thirds the size of a regular cricket bat.

The rubber apparently causes the ball to bounce off the surface to all kinds of heights, aiding fieldsmen to practice at par-match conditions. It apparently helps for infielding as well, with the ball traveling at great speeds for just the smallest of touches. And at under 1 Kg, sounds like cricket's own ping-pong paddle.

The catch here is the price. Each one of these costs an estimated $160. There is a cheaper version called the Skyer Boom that comes at an estimated $50, but is obviouly not as effective as the regualr piece, and comes in a terribly gay pink.

By the way, remember the kinds of suggestions that would keep passing around in our schooldays about Jayasuriya's bat having a spring in it that helped him hit sixes( or still worse, those contact lenses he wore to make the ball look like a football :D ). Well, here it comes my friends.

And oh yes!! There's another reason to like it. It's orange :-).

Whatever...