Manufacturing of Cricket bats in Kashmir, India.

A worker shapes willow on a machine to produce cricket bats at a factory in Sangam. Considered for years to be vastly inferior to the wood of the English willow - which still holds a near-monopoly over the global cricket bat industry - Kashmiri willow has made a significant foray into international cricket recently. Oman batsmen Bilal Khan and Naseem Khushi used Kashmiri bats at the T20 World Cup. Misbah ul Haq smashed some brisk runs with it at the Legends Cricket League. More than 400 factories in the state are now involved in the business, employing around 20,000 people and having an annual turnover of around Indian Rupees 70 crore. In the last four years, twenty five business units of bat manufacturing industries in Halmulla and Sangam area of Bijbehara belt have closed due to lack of demand.