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Cricket The Ashes Jake Weatherald using the JK bat to see Australia home in Brisbane Robert Cianflone/Getty Images The Athletic has launched a Cricket Whats App Channel. Click here to join. Four different brands will supply the bats used by the Australia team when the third Ashes Test against England begins in Adelaide this week. The first three are household names for any cricket fan: Gray-Nicolls and Kookaburra have been making bats since the 19th century, while American sportswear giant New Balance has deals with both Pat Cummins and Steve Smith. The fourth, meanwhile, is anything but. Advertisement JK Cricket, whose bats have been used in this series by Australia’s new opener Jake Weatherald, is based in a small warehouse located behind the offices of an elderly-care provider in Norwood, an eastern suburb of Adelaide where the streets are lined with bright-purple jacaranda trees. The workshop and showroom are open by appointment only, with a warning by the doorbell that the noise from a sanding machine operating inside means it is better to phone to announce your arrival. The door is opened by the ‘JK’ in question: Jack Konnis, an unassuming 25-year-old whose workshop is littered with bats old and new, and largely covered in wood shavings. He is living out the dream that he first had as a teenager when, as a third-grade player at Adelaide’s Kensington District Cricket Club, he would repair his team-mates’ bats in the garden shed at his parents’ house and get told off by his mother for using his sanding machine at midnight. There is no history of bat-making or carpentry in the family. “My dad is a teacher, so he has no idea how to move a tool, ” Konnis tells The Athletic. “When I was 13, I went to Adelaide High School, and you’re surrounded by mates who are all cricketers. You start learning how to put a bat grip on, see all these different brands, and think, ‘This is pretty cool. ’ I was sketching different designs with logos and all those things. “Aged 15 or 16, I thought I’d give it a go, shaving a few of my mates’ bats down and sending them back, and from there I gained quite an interest in it. I started advertising repairs on Gumtree at really cheap prices, and from there I started getting a bit of interest. ” Remarkably, Konnis says he is almost entirely self-taught. “I watched a lot of You Tube videos to start with. But a lot of it was just through trial and error, and just having a bit of hunger to learn. I loved it so much. Like anything when you have a real passion for it, it didn’t really feel like a chore or anything: it came naturally… It has been very much trial and error. ” Advertisement Konnis has relied heavily on word of mouth within the relatively small world of South Australia cricket. His first job for a professional player came via Kensington, where Alex Ross — who represents Adelaide Strikers in the Twenty20 format’s Big Bash League — was a first-grade player and requested some repairs from this little-known teenager with a drawknife. Ross’ subsequent recommendation went a long way, and other pros followed suit. The list of international players whose bats Konnis has since repaired is a who’s who. “Joe Root came and dropped off a few off during the (2021-22) Ashes, to adjust the weight and make sure they felt comfortable. Dawid Malan was another; Travis Head, Steve Smith… I won’t keep name-dropping. ” There is also a framed shirt on the showroom wall belonging to Rashid Khan of Afghanistan, the leading wicket-taker in the history of international T20 cricket. Konnis started to make bats — rather than just repairing them — in 2019, and has gradually grown his business since. After studying to become, then working part-time as, an occupational therapist, he has now reached the point where he feels able to take what he calls “a leap of faith” and commit to JK Cricket on a full-time basis. Konnis was introduced to Weatherald through Ross, the players were housemates in Adelaide at the time, and modified several bats for him. But they grew much closer when Weatherald took a mental-health break from the sport three years ago. “He reached out initially just saying, ‘Hey mate, I have a lot of time on my hands. I’d love to help your business and your brand, and potentially create a JK line’, ” Konnis recalls. “I thought, ‘This is amazing’. ” By the time Weatherald made his Tasmania debut in late 2023 after a move from South Australia, he was using a JK bat he had helped design: the JW Enigma. Advertisement His career has taken off since. He was the leading run-scorer in the Sheffield Shield last season, made his international debut in the first Ashes Test last month and was then Australia’s top scorer in their second Test win in Brisbane, with knocks of 72 and 17 not out. The pair have become friends through working closely together, and Konnis travelled to Perth last month to watch Weatherald’s first days as a Test cricketer. “The last few weeks for me have been just a real sense of pride in him, ” he says. “To see someone living out their dream is something I’m very grateful for, and to be a very small part of his journey has been absolutely amazing. ” Weatherald is carrying seven bats around Australia with him during the Ashes, each weighing around 2lb 11oz (1. 2kg). “It used to be 2lb 7oz: quite skinny, a really round toe, ” Konnis says. “He didn’t want to feel a single bit of weight. “But when I started working with him, I convinced him he could use something heavier if we put the timber in the right spots. ” Weatherald’s main strength as a batter is playing square or the wicket or behind — he is a strong cutter and puller, as England discovered in that second Test defeat at the Gabba — and therefore uses bats with a high middle (the ‘sweet spot’ where the bat is thickest). “They have thick shoulders, a really thick, oval handle, and quite a high middle, ” Konnis explains. “We’ve engineered it like that so we can have as much weight as possible near his hands, and he (Weatherald) feels really comfortable with that. ” The bat-making process starts with a cleft of English willow, imported from the UK, which is then cut down to size and put through 750kg of force in a mechanical press, which creates the ‘rebound’ effect when the ball strikes it. The cleft is then ‘spliced’ by cutting a ‘V’ shape into which the handle — made from rubber or cork, surrounded by Sarawak cane — slots in and is glued tightly to ensure it can withstand the force of a ball bowled at 90mph (145kph). From there, the batmaker gets to work with a drawknife and a sander to shape the bat to his customer’s specifications, before polishing and stickering to create the finished product. “A lot of the tools that are still used in cricket date back 100 years, ” Konnis says. “Our trade is called ‘pod shaving’, which is essentially using tools like drawknives, spoke shaves and hand planes… All of those processes will probably be quickened up by the use of more machinery in the future, but I’m doing it in a humble way at the moment. Advertisement “It probably does take me a bit longer than a lot of other brands, but I get a little bit lost in the willow, to be honest. Time goes pretty quick in here. ” Konnis’s bats are a premium product: the entry point is A$699 (just under £350), and a bat made from his very best willow will set you back A$1699 (£845). Manufacturing costs are spiralling, too, the result of the worldwide scarcity of English willow, a crisis in the industry that prompted the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) to host an emergency conference at Lord’s in October. “Willow costs have gone up by about 32 per cent in three years, ” Konnis says. “There’s a lot of alternatives that are in trial stages at the moment. I’ve tried things like Serbian timber, and Dutch willow, but by far the best-performing timber I’ve used is English willow. ” Weatherald’s first innings in this series was so brief he never even got to use his bat: he missed his first ball, then was knocked off his feet by an in-swinger from Jofra Archer that trapped him leg before wicket. In fact, it was Brendan Doggett — the Australia fast bowler who also made his debut in Perth — who made the first Test runs scored with a JK bat, after walking in at No 11, but Weatherald has since proven his ability. “I look back on the replay and get a bit nuffy (obsessive) with where he’s contacting balls, just to see if we’ve got the wood where it needs to be, ” Konnis says. “But certainly shots, like ramping over the top — and even top-edging over the ’keeper for four — are super-cool to see that the willow is doing the job. ” In the long term, Konnis’ dream is for JK Cricket to evolve from a small business mixing it with the batmaking big boys into a “household Australian brand”. But, for this week, he can simply enjoy being in the city he calls home, watching Weatherald use his bats as Australia hunt a series-clinching win when the third Test starts tomorrow (Tuesday). “I’m not in the position that a lot of other, bigger companies are, with the capacity to throw endorsement money around. But I’ve really tried to build relationships, and to work intimately with each person — like Jake — to ensure they’re getting a product that they feel comfortable with, and that feels meaningful to them, ” he says. “That’s what fills my cup. ” Matt Roller is a freelance cricket writer for The Athletic and senior correspondent for ESPNcricinfo in London, and has covered international and franchise cricket around the world. He is the co-author of White Hot: The Inside Story of England Cricket’s Double World Champions, the ghostwriter of Steven Finn’s autobiography The Ashes Files, and appears on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast.