Cricket Bat Size GuideWhich size is right for your height — and why the wrong one does lasting damage to a young player

For an adult, the wrong bat size costs runs. For a junior, it costs technique — and by the time anyone notices, the habits have set. This is the one equipment decision where getting it wrong has consequences that outlast the bat.

Height, never age

Two twelve-year-olds can differ by twenty centimetres. Age charts exist because they are convenient to print, not because they work — and they get it wrong for every early developer and every late one.

Here is what actually happens when a young player is given a bat that is too big:

• They grip tighter, because they cannot control it otherwise — and a tight grip kills feel and timing.
• The backlift shortens, because lifting the weight to the top of the swing is too much work.
• The bottom hand takes over, because the weaker top hand cannot control the bat — which is how across-the-line hitting becomes habitual.
• The stance compensates, with leaning or crouching to manage the length.

Those are not bad habits in the ordinary sense. They are structural compensations the body has built around the equipment, and correcting them means dismantling the compensation before rebuilding the technique — which takes far longer than buying the right bat did.

How to measure properly

Two or three centimetres changes the answer at a transition point, so do not estimate.

• Shoes off. The chart is based on barefoot height. Cricket shoes add two to three centimetres, which matters at a boundary.
• Flat against a wall — heels, upper back and back of the head touching, feet together, looking straight ahead. No tiptoeing, no slouching.
• Flat object on the head, level with the wall. Mark where it meets. Measure floor to mark.
• Write it down in both centimetres and feet and inches, because charts use one or the other.

The full size chart

Size	Height	cm	Length	Notes
Size 1	Under 4ft	Under 122cm	~61cm	First bat. Should feel almost weightless.
Size 2	4ft – 4ft 3in	122–130cm	~64cm	Contact and confidence, not technique.
Size 3	4ft 3in – 4ft 6in	130–137cm	~67cm	Our Player Edition starts here.
Size 4	4ft 6in – 4ft 9in	137–145cm	~70cm	The first bat to build real technique with.
Size 5	4ft 9in – 5ft 1in	145–155cm	~73cm	Leather ball cricket becomes serious here.
Size 6	5ft 1in – 5ft 4in	155–163cm	~76cm	The most important junior size. Habits formed here last.
Harrow	5ft 4in – 5ft 6in	163–168cm	~79cm	The transition size. Also suits shorter adults.
Short Handle	5ft 6in – 6ft	168–183cm	~85cm	The standard adult bat. Most adults take this.
Long Handle	6ft – 6ft 4in	183–193cm	~87cm	Same blade as SH, longer handle.
Long Blade	Over 6ft 4in	Over 193cm	~87cm	Same handle as SH, longer blade.

These are guides, not rules. Arm length, playing style and strength all shift the answer, and two players of identical height can genuinely prefer different sizes. If you are sitting right on a boundary — exactly 5ft 4in between Size 6 and Harrow, exactly 6ft between SH and LH — the chart cannot decide it for you. The tests can.

Two tests that confirm it

1. The hip test

Quick, and reliable enough to do in a shop.

• Wear the shoes you actually play in.
• Stand the bat vertically beside your leg, toe on the floor next to your foot.
• Look at where the top of the handle reaches.

Handle reaches	Verdict
Your hip, or just below the waist	Correct
Your knee or mid-thigh	Too small
Your navel or chest	Too big

2. The stance test

Slower, and the one that actually settles a borderline case.

• Take your normal batting stance, bat resting on the ground by your back foot.
• The toe should rest naturally — without holding the bat at an odd angle or bending your knees more than usual to reach the floor.
• Play a slow backlift. The bat should move freely, without the handle catching your forearm and without your posture changing to accommodate it.
• Play a slow forward defensive. If the toe drags and catches the ground through the shot, the bat is too long.

Where the chart and the tests disagree, trust the tests. The chart knows your height; the tests know your proportions.

SH, LH and LB — the real difference

The distinction most guides fudge: Long Handle adds reach, Long Blade adds hitting surface. They are not two grades of "bigger".

	Short Handle	Long Handle	Long Blade
Blade	Standard	Standard	Longer
Handle	Standard	Longer	Standard
Total length	~85cm	~87cm	~87cm
Effect on pickup	Baseline	Feels similar — cane is light	Feels heavier — willow added at the toe
Suits	5ft 6in–6ft. Most adults.	6ft–6ft 4in, or anyone stooping in SH	Above 6ft 4in, or wanting more hitting area

Which problem are you solving?

If you feel stooped in a Short Handle stance — bending more than feels natural to get the bat down — you want Long Handle. The longer handle lets you hold the bat higher without dropping your posture.

If your problem is reach — the blade feels short getting to full deliveries — you want Long Blade.

Most players between 6ft and 6ft 4in want LH rather than LB. And plenty of tall players are perfectly happy in a Short Handle, because control beats reach.

Harrow, the size everyone skips

Harrow sits between Size 6 and Short Handle, and it is the least discussed size in cricket equipment. It is also where a lot of young players get let down.

The jump from Size 6 to Short Handle is one of the largest single steps on the chart, in both length and weight. For a player right at the transition, going straight across means a bat that is too big at exactly the stage when technique is consolidating.

Harrow is right when

• The player is between 5ft 4in and 5ft 6in and feels cramped in a Size 6 but awkward in a Short Handle
• They have grown quickly and their strength has not caught up with their height yet
• They are an adult under 5ft 6in who finds Short Handle bats long and heavy — this is a legitimate adult size, not a junior compromise

Harrow is wrong when

• The player is above 5ft 6in — they will feel cramped and lose reach
• They pass both physical tests comfortably in a Short Handle. There is no benefit to an extra step for someone already ready

The right time to move up is when the Harrow fails the tests as too small — not when a birthday suggests it. That stage can last six months or two full seasons depending on how the player grows.

Five sizing mistakes

1. Buying big to grow into

The most damaging of the five. Twelve to eighteen months in a bat that is too big builds compensations that take several seasons of coaching to undo. The money saved on one bat costs far more in correction.

2. Sizing by age

A twelve-year-old at 5ft 4in and one at 4ft 10in need different bats. Measure, every time.

3. Skipping Harrow

Going Size 6 straight to Short Handle at the transition point. Test both; let the tests decide.

4. Assuming tall means Long Handle

Height alone does not require LH. Feeling stooped in an SH stance does. Do the stance test in both.

5. Trusting the chart over your own hands

At a boundary, either size can be technically correct. The tests are the only thing that knows your proportions, and they take two minutes.

What sizes we make

Range	Sizes	From
Player Edition — Kashmir willow	Nine, from Size 3 to long blade long handle	₹5,999
Academy, Legend, Limited — Kashmir willow	Eight, from Size 4	₹4,499
English willow range	Seven sizes	₹7,999
Inferno and Apex Limited	Five adult sizes only — 1220g minimum, not for juniors	₹23,999

Size is free, like every other specification we build to — profile, handle shape, toe shape, weight and engraving. Set it on our bat builder, or send us the player's height on WhatsApp and we will confirm it before anything is made.

If the player is between two sizes, we will tell you so — and which one we would choose, and why. That conversation costs us nothing and it is the difference between a bat that gets used and one that gets replaced.

Questions players ask

Size sorted? Next decisions: weight, which matters more than the number suggests, and profile, which changes how a bat plays more than anything else.