India: Kashmir floods 'hit cricket bat supplies'

By News from Elsewhere... ...media reports from around the world, found by BBC Monitoring

The supply of cricket bats in India may be at risk because floods in Kashmir have washed away so much of the willow wood they're made from, it's reported.

Manufacturers says the price of bats is about to go up because of an acute shortage of willow wood, the Hindustan Times reports. "Whatever willow they had in their yards has either been swept away or damaged by the flood waters," says Paras Anand, head of marketing for Indian bat maker SG. "It is bad news for the industry."

The problem may not affect elite players - who still use bats made from imported English willow - but will hit amateur and regional players who use the more affordable Kashmiri-made bats. The British introduced willow trees to Kashmir before World War Two and the cricket bat industry there now employs about 10,000 people. It is seen as second only to its English counterpart internationally.

Around 400 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands are stranded in their homes by the worst floods Kashmir has seen in half a century.

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