Gray Nicolls Scoop turns 40
The Gray Nicolls Scoop, the bat every kid wanted for Christmas, turns 40 this year
23-Jul-2014
The Gray Nicolls Scoop, the bat every kid wanted for Christmas, turns 40 this year. Russell Jackson gives the history of the bat, popularised by the Chappell brothers and David Hookes, in the Guardian.
"I tell you what, you've hit the bonanza!" says Robert "Swan" Richards as he pulls a pile of photo albums and scrapbooks out of storage containers under a desk in his office. I've turned up to Richards' cricket store in Collingwood, north of Melbourne, in search of clues about the somewhat mythical origins of the Gray Nicolls Scoop, the sword in the stone of all cricket bats and a bona fide object of desire in the cricket world of the 1970s and 80s.