Welcome to the Good Gear Guide for 2010. It has been the coldest winter for 30 years and we all need some warming up. That is what the Guide is for – to get you dreaming of summer and drooling over kit; it is to help you spend that saved £200 wisely; it is to make you kick the decade off in style by both looking magnificent and playing brilliantly.

This year we asked players to put themselves forward to road-test the gear. The lucky six selected came from all over the country – Yorkshire, Wales, Birmingham, Essex, Hertfordshire and London – and they all play decent-level league cricket. We did not want professionals testing the gear with their extreme tastes and endorsement contracts to worry about, we wanted the sort of cricketer who would be forking out for the kit – the keen clubman whose views will be mirrored all over the country.

No favours are given to commercial partners – much to their frustration. The players see the kit, play the kit, review the kit. And there are some notable absentees from this year’s review: Charlie French and Warsop, both past Best Bat winners, failed to get their kit to us on time. There was no Masuri helmet (extra reviews will appear online at thewisdencricketer.com in mid-March).

But there is loads of good kit out there and it can be bewildering. With any luck this Guide will come to the rescue. Enjoy.

Bats
The Big names      Puma Iridium 5000
The established names   Choice Black Prince
The newer names  PiriPiri Naga Jolokia pro
innovations  Mongoose MMI3

Padding
 pads     Millichamp & Hall Alpha
 gloves     Hawk X10
 thigh guard     Bradbury Players

Keeping
 pads     Puma Iridium 5000
 gloves     Gunn & Moore Paul Nixon

Helmets     Gunn & Moore Purist pro

Boots     Asics Gel 8 for 64

Bag     Gunn & Moore Original  LE duplex wheelie



Edward Craig
Editor, Good Gear Guide