From the archive record
Partly completed cricket bats stand against the factory wall in Sangham Village, Bijbehara, Kashmir. Cricket is the most popular sport in India. Go to any part in India from Jammu & Kashmir in the north to Kerala and Tamil Nadu in the south or from Maharashtra in the west to Assam in the east, you would definitely spot a bunch of boys busy with a cricket bat hitting a ball. Behind the towering willows, Kashmir’s cricket bat industry is a living, breathing, manufacturing industry, as the bats are handmade at a local factory. Forty kilometers from Srinagar is Sangam, the veiled world of the Kashmiri willow and cricket bat makers. The willow clefts obtained from the willow trees here are being fashioned to manufacture quality cricket bats. Kashmir willow is largely utilized by cricket bat man