My story in bat making continues to grow. I began JPGavan in 2012 as a 16 year old high school student, selling Indian-made bats mainly to friends and followers I'd grown through a YouTube channel and Facebook page. I launched with the biggest bat in the world, the JPGavan Tyrant, designed as a training aid, though plenty of people used it in games. I also sold a small number of Indian-made English willow bats, but with little knowledge of the industry I didn't know much about how to handle small cracks and general wear and tear.

I first travelled to India in 2012, visiting bat factories to get those early bats made. In 2014 I went back to learn bat repairs, and it was there that someone taught me how to use a block plane. I brought that one skill home and taught myself the rest, working out how to make a bat from scratch. That's where I fell in love with it: shaping willow by hand, working with clients to build a bat that suits them, and giving them the rare chance to watch it happen.

Over the years I've kept working on and improving my bat making and repairs. I spent 18 months as head repairer at Kingsgrove Sports, where I learned not just how to do repairs, but how to do a lot of them, quickly and well. Since 2015 I've worked with professional cricketers and still rely on their feedback to sharpen the quality of everything I make.

Some of what's happened along the way still feels surreal. In 2015, bats I'd made by hand in a suburban garage ended up on cricket's biggest stage, used by international players from more than one country at a World Cup on home soil. Around that same tournament I was trusted to repair and fine-tune bats for some of the most explosive names in the world game. Not long after, a JPGavan bat was swung through national TV ad breaks for a full Big Bash season, a backyard maker on prime-time television.

In 2022, still a small backyard workshop, I signed one of the greatest cricketers the game has ever seen. For years the work happened out of a garage in Bondi, and in June 2024 that chapter closed when I opened JPG HQ, a proper home for the brand, launched by one of the biggest names in cricket.

More than a decade on, the craft is still at the heart of it. Every custom JPGavan bat is handmade to order, and our senior pre-made bats are crafted right here in Sydney, with the same obsession that started when I was 16. JPGavan Cricket is my passion and life's work, and I hope to keep serving the cricket community and building this business for a long time to come.

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History of JPGavan bats

2012/13

Tyrant

Tormentor

2013/14

Tyrant

Tormentor

Sabre

Tyrant LE

2014/15

Tyrant

Little Ripper

2015/16

Professional Plus

Little Ripper

Thunderblade

Stroke

2016/17

Featherblade x

Featherblade

Professional Plus

Little Ripper

Thunderblade

Stroke

Stroke training aid

2017/18

Featherblade

Professional Plus

Little Ripper

Thunderblade

Stroke

Stroke training aid

2018/19

Featherblade

Professional Plus

Little Ripper

Thunderblade