As we get to the end of the club cricket season in England, the number of fake cricket bats being sold on Ebay has risen dramatically. Where once it was just the "English Willow nurtured in India" rubbish being flogged (link to useful guide), I see that unscrupulous UK sellers are now also taking people for a ride.

One of the most commonly copied cricket bats is the Puma range (Ballistic, Atomic, etc) though most major brands (Slazenger, Kookaburra, etc) are often faked.  There are many ways to check on the authenticity of a bat but the best way is to simply do a search for high resolution pictures from a reputable cricket website and compare the pictures to the one being sold. If the seller uses library pictures, walk away. The exception would be Powersellers, with multiple listings, who often use stock photos for practical reasons. But you still need to read their feedback just to make sure they sell the real thing.

Recently four people bought what they thought were Puma Atomic and Ballistic bats for around £75 each from a UK seller who conned them all into believing it was the genuine article. I reported the seller to Ebay but these things take long to investigate. In the meantime, the conman has started selling his driftwood bats under another name! I have been playing semi-pro cricket for about 20 years and am a sports journalist - I have seen and used several genuine Puma Atomic bats and the ones in the listings were not one of them. For starters, the stickers on one of the bats were the wrong colour and if you looked closely at the sticker on the front face, it was not aligned correctly (too close to the edge on the left hand side). The stickers on the back were completely different from a genuine Puma bat. Puma would never let a defective bat leave its factory like that, especially not a top of the range model, which is used by some of its former international players - like Adam Gilchrist of Australia and Geraint Jones of England - or a number of current stars.

You need to do your homework before bidding on an item. Impulse buys will only end in tears. The winners unfortunately saw deals that were too good to be true (the genuine Puma Atomic 5000 bat would be closer to £200 or even more) and forked out £75 each for a fake made in India that honestly can cost as little as £5 to make (I know, I have friends and family who live in India. A Kasmir Willow fake bat with fake stickers can be manufactured in less than an hour. The real article takes a lot longer). The fake bat will simply crack and even break after a few innings whereas the real deal will last at least a few seasons, if not more if you knock it in correctly.

Yes, sadly, every cricket bat on the market is copied and often sold to unsuspecting buyers. The only rare exceptions are some bespoke models (Laver & Wood, Millichamp & Hall, Bradbury, etc) but these cost a fortune anyway and are only for the serious cricketers out there. If you want a "cheap" bat, rather buy a good used one from a reputable seller with excellent feeedback on Ebay. I prefer used bats because they have already been knocked in :-)

Or opt for a new model but with a lower grade of willow. There is nothing wrong with Grade 3 willow. In fact, I know of some chaps who prefer lower grade willow as it lasts longer. Higher grader willow will obviously give you better performance (ping) but it may deteriorate quicker than a lower, harder, grade wood.

Another way to spot a dodgy seller is when the listing has words like "custom" or "cloned" hidden somewhere in a microscopic font on the page. Conmen add this "disclaimer" to the listing so that you can't claim your money back. There are a few genuine "customised" bats for sale on Ebay but these are very rare. The definition of "customised" is a bat that was manfactured according to a batsman's preferences by the manfacturer, not a piece of plywood fashioned to look like a bat with stickers added on and made in India. Some sellers are brazen enough to actually say that the "bat started as a regular plain bat and stickers were added later" but they use a very light, small font, and the average buyer will not see it.

UPDATE: 27/09/2008: Well, despite all the warning about fake bats, buyers are still falling victim to unscrupulous sellers - I have received several e-mails from people who have wasted their money on inferior products. The problem is that the fakes are now getting better in appearance and even comparing it to pictures of the genuine products on the web is sometimes not sufficient. And the quality of the stickers that conmen are applying to these cheap bats is also improving...

My latest advice is that you contact the seller first and ask them for a money-back guarantee, in case the bat turns out to be fake. Offer to pay the return postage - if they are confident about their bats, they should have no problem with this. If they refuse, don't do business with them - there are thousands of sellers on Ebay and you really are spoilt for choice. Secondly, pay with PayPal so that you are further protected and can claim your money back from PayPal if the seller gives you a hassle about a refund.