“…Comparing materials, from a mechanical perspective and from the structural perspective; can there be a substitute for the English willow? Bat Vibration A special spot on a bat where the shot feels best-the fundamental vibration node and the centre of percussion Forces between Bat and Ball Force on the ball which has to slow it down to a complete stop, and then accelerate it back in the other direction Various modifications and designs have been developed using wood, aluminium and composite materials to improve the performance of baseball and cricket bats (Eftaxiopoulou, Narayanan, Dear, & Bull, 2011;Pang, Subic, & Takla, 2011;Shenoy, Smith, & Axtell, 2001;Smith, Shenoy, Axtell, & Sem, 2000;Sridharan, Rao, & Omkar, 2015). An alternate approach has been to modify the wooden bat with wooden side inserts, originally sourced from staves used in old wine barrels, developed by Ron Sears (Echuca Times, 2012) with a version being recently marketed (Slazenger, 2016).…”