Wills Kings Cricket!

[TheCarromBall]

Salaam brother I noticed a while ago that during the 90's cricketers were using bats that said 'Wills Kings' on them. I found a Wills Kings cricket bat on eBay. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wills-Kin...524&pid=100015&prg=1006&rk=1&sd=181078413616&
It's actually quite rare and Saeed Anwar used Wills Kings when he made his 194 against India in Chennai 1997. What happened to Wills Kings now?
Shukriya.

 

[Cricketismylife]

Wills is a cigarette brand.

They have been banned from sponsoring cricket.

 

[TheCarromBall]

Kyun?

 

[90MPH]

I remember the Willis king cricket bars as well.

I think one time around the mid 90s the whole Pakistan team was using them.

I bought one myself when I visited Pakistan.

I do wonder who made them or was it part of a deal to just sticker all bats as Willis king.

 

[Supporter of Pak legends]

I've always wondered this. Quite a few times I have noticed that Pakistani cricketers during the 90's were using thse bats and I have always wondered where to acquire these bats from. I also wondered whether these bats where just different, preferential hand-made bats of players with Wills King stickers on them or whether the stickers were produced along with the ba.

 

[TheCarromBall]

Yes brothers we all want to know. Is there anyone on PakPassipn who knows about the Wills bats? Saeed Anwar used it but who made the bats for such and such. Is there anyone who would know

 

[TheCarromBall]

Are they still available in pakistan?

 

[TheCarromBall]

Does anyone have one which I can buy?

 

[xkalibur80]

Wills was just a sponsor - bat was probably made by one of the other bat manufacturers..

 

[murphyslaw79]

Yes brothers we all want to know. Is there anyone on PakPassipn who knows about the Wills bats? Saeed Anwar used it but who made the bats for such and such. Is there anyone who would know

They weren't made by wills, they were normal bats chosen from a factory and put a sticker on it.

I had 100s a while back and my whole school team had the sticker on their bats.

Before u ask, I don't have any now.

 

[kamranwasti]

Salaam brother I noticed a while ago that during the 90's cricketers were using bats that said 'Wills Kings' on them. I found a Wills Kings cricket bat on eBay. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wills-Kin...524&pid=100015&prg=1006&rk=1&sd=181078413616&
It's actually quite rare and Saeed Anwar used Wills Kings when he made his 194 against India in Chennai 1997. What happened to Wills Kings now?
Shukriya.

BCCP (that was how the PCB was known at the time got a deal done with Wills just before the 1993 tour to the West Indies which stipulated that Pakistani cricketers only use Wills Kings stickers on their bats. Javed Miandad refused to sign this deal because of his anti-smoking stance and continued to use his CA or AS stickers. He only appeared till 1993 after the deal i.e. the West Indies tour, a 3-national tourney in Sharjah and the Zimbabwe home series. After that was the mistake which was his 1996 World Cup comeback; he again used a CA sticker then and not the Wills Kings one.

During the tours to Australia, the 1996-97 one in particular, this became a hot issue and a compromise was reached - Pakistanis kept using the stickers but had the 'Wills Kings' bit taped off.

The deal ended in 1998 when Pakistan Tobacco suddenly pulled out of all cricket sponsorship in Pakistan. With the World Cup and an Australian tour coming up over the next year, it was never going to work.

So when Saeed Anwar and Shahid Afridi came out to open Pakistan's batting in the Madras test, they were sporting proper sports manufacturer labels and not some stupid Wills Kings cigarette pack scan which you have somehow interpreted as the Wills Kings Sports company.