Kookaburra plans to laser test illegal bats

Kookaburra, the company sponsoring Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey, will have its banned bats tested using laser vibration in a bid to show the graphite stickers on the back do not increase its power. The Marylebone Cricket Club last week ruled three of Kookaburra's styles were illegal and the company withdrew the products from Test and ODI markets.

Ponting will use his Kahuna and Hussey his Beast in the one-day games in South Africa, but the pair needs replacements for the three-Test series starting on March 15. "There's a couple of good ones at the moment I don't really want to part company with," Ponting told AAP. "I'm going to be right to use those bats until the end of the one-day series and then it's going to be up to me over there to get the black graphite off the back of the bat so I can use them in the Test series."

The Sydney Morning Herald reported Kookaburra had provided scientific evidence from independent sources to argue the strip does not form an integral part of the blade and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology would conduct vibration testing. "The MCC says its experts have raised the point that the covering changes the amount of vibration and thus increases the power," Rob Elliott, Kookaburra's managing director, told the paper. "We know this isn't true, from anecdotal evidence and testing, and now we're proving it."