This topic leads on from a discussion I had with Asad bhai recently. Most of us on the forum have used cricket equipment from Pakistani brands at one point in our cricketing lives. How do you feel Pakistani brands compete on the world stage and what suggestions would you offer them. We do have a few retailers on the forum who deal with these brands and such is the breadth of the forum you never know who might read it!
On a recent trip to Pakistan I was able to source a beautiful CA 20-20 bat for Rs. 3500/ $40 which was an absolute steal. The quality of the bats generally was impressive and if one was willing to look beyond the branding the prices were probably the lowest you would find anywhere in the world for quality cricketing gear.
I did not look much into the softs but my previous experience has been a little disappointing.
So from my limited experience over the years I will start and list a few suggestions I have for Pakistani brands if they want to compete on the world stage.
1. They need to radically improve their general branding specially the quality of their stickers. Also I have found that with branding less is more though this may be a personal preference.
2. Brands such as CA need to reduce the number of ranges and vastly improve and simplify their ranging schemes. The numbering scheme made some sense when it corresponded to the number of runs Inzamam made but is now simply ludicrous.
3. There generally is not a discernible difference between profiles from one range to another. Sometimes bats in one range do not have a consistent (I don’t mean CNC consistent) profile.
4. Have different players endorse different ranges which one range being the flagship. At one point last year half the Pakistani team seemed to be using CA 12000 range. Malik are the same with most of the sponsored players using MB Bubber Sher. It looks a lot like Pakistani political parties having scores of Senior Vice Presidents.
5. They should invest some money into trying to improve equipment other then bats and try to differentiate them self through this. What confidence would a discerning cricketer have in buying Pakistani softs when most of the sponsored players simply rebrand GMs and Pumas.
These are just a few points and I would like PPers to follow suit. I would stake that Pakistani bats are among the best in the world and there is no reason why they can’t improve branding. I do recognize that even without changing anything on their branding they have enough domestic demand to sustain them but I believe they should think bigger.
On a recent trip to Pakistan I was able to source a beautiful CA 20-20 bat for Rs. 3500/ $40 which was an absolute steal. The quality of the bats generally was impressive and if one was willing to look beyond the branding the prices were probably the lowest you would find anywhere in the world for quality cricketing gear.
I did not look much into the softs but my previous experience has been a little disappointing.
So from my limited experience over the years I will start and list a few suggestions I have for Pakistani brands if they want to compete on the world stage.
1. They need to radically improve their general branding specially the quality of their stickers. Also I have found that with branding less is more though this may be a personal preference.
2. Brands such as CA need to reduce the number of ranges and vastly improve and simplify their ranging schemes. The numbering scheme made some sense when it corresponded to the number of runs Inzamam made but is now simply ludicrous.
3. There generally is not a discernible difference between profiles from one range to another. Sometimes bats in one range do not have a consistent (I don’t mean CNC consistent) profile.
4. Have different players endorse different ranges which one range being the flagship. At one point last year half the Pakistani team seemed to be using CA 12000 range. Malik are the same with most of the sponsored players using MB Bubber Sher. It looks a lot like Pakistani political parties having scores of Senior Vice Presidents.
5. They should invest some money into trying to improve equipment other then bats and try to differentiate them self through this. What confidence would a discerning cricketer have in buying Pakistani softs when most of the sponsored players simply rebrand GMs and Pumas.
These are just a few points and I would like PPers to follow suit. I would stake that Pakistani bats are among the best in the world and there is no reason why they can’t improve branding. I do recognize that even without changing anything on their branding they have enough domestic demand to sustain them but I believe they should think bigger.
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