Kochi native's 'bat scooping' becomes talk of town; Know more about this remarkable business story

KOCHI: P S Abbas is surrounded by cricket bats, his life too. At the age of 21, this Edapally native started a bat scooping (special chisel polishing) business. Scooping involves reducing the height and weight of the bat to suit the player's preference. Nobody would have thought that the business would thrive in a way. The 29-year-old Abbas barely gets any time away from work these days.

The bats chiselled by Abbas are in demand in Australia, Canada and the UAE. Cricket caught his attention during his school days. He made legendary Tendulkar his idol. The craze for cricket transpired in the field too and Abbas turned into a brilliant all-rounder in soft and hardball tournaments. But to support his family, he became a safety officer in a private company in Ernakulam and dropped his dream behind.

He quit the game after getting no time to attend training. But the recurring feeling of starting a business related to cricket travelled with him and sometimes left him daydreaming. With just a Rs 2000 gift from his mother, Abbas got three bats from Kashmir and sold two of them by tying them with thread in a special way.

After making a profit, 10 more were made. Now, up to 200 bats a day are scooped up and sold under the brand A6. Father Shahjahan and brother Shahnawaz are with him. Abbas caught the attention of other cricket enthusiasts when he appeared with his special bat for training sessions. A hard-ball bat costs Rs 2500-3000, and a soft-ball bat costs Rs 2000-2800.

To learn the trade, Abbas spent two days at a bat factory in Gujarat to get an idea of scooping. Then he brought the machine and did it himself. The workshop is in a tiny booth in Edapally.

“Would like to gift my bat to Sanju and Sachin” said Abbas.