The cricket bat started out its transition to the now recognisable oblong profile in the 1770s, when the laws of cricket changed to allow bowlers to ‘loop’ the ball in the air whilst nonetheless bowling underarm. The change in law led to a corresponding amendment in batting method, with avid gamers starting to use a more vertical swing of the bat, as hostile to the horizontal ‘sweeping’ action that was not unusual with balls rolled alongside the floor. The bat was nonetheless very heavy on the base, and it wasn’t until the 1820s with the introduction of circular arm bowling that bats began to take the sincerely contemporary form. Initially, the laws of the game made no restriction on what size or form the bat needed to be. This hassle was not essential, until a suave pondering participant, one ‘Shock’ White representing Ryegate, marched out to bat against Hambledon in 1771 with a bat the width of the stumps. This tactic was considered fairly unsportsmanlike, and Hambledon’s recommendation that the bat be officially limited to a greatest of four and 1/4 inches in width was simply permitted around all of England.