Srinagar, October 28 (HS): Leaving behind the glamour of Bengaluru’s corporate world and a well-paid job, a Kashmiri software engineer is working to modernise his father’s craft of making cricket bats and bring it before the world as a brand.

He is Saqlain Yousuf, from the Sangam area of Anantnag district in south Kashmir, who worked with various companies outside Jammu and Kashmir. A B.Tech graduate of Punjab Technical University, Saqlain is a software engineer as well as a content creator. His father has been making cricket bats for nearly three decades.

Speaking to Hindusthan Samachar, Saqlain said he worked in Bengaluru for some years, but, inspired by his father’s hard work and resilience, he was always preoccupied with the thought of introducing his father’s work to the world. “Six months ago I resigned from that job and resolved to turn my intention into action. Now I am striving to carry my father’s bat-making forward in a new way and take it to the world,” he said.

Welcoming young entrants to the industry, Fawzul Kabir, spokesperson and vice-president of the Cricket Bat Manufacturers Association of Kashmir (CBMAK), told Hindusthan Samachar that he expects them to focus on product development and to build products that meet buyers’ expectations.

“We must not give customers wrong information, or, to put it another way, we must not mis-sell, because such practices hurt the industry. We will have to make our products to international standards,” he added.

Saqlain says that in Bengaluru he had a good job, a stable income and a comfortable life, but no peace of mind, because all day and night he kept thinking that he should execute his own projects. According to him, he has no regrets about leaving the job.

He says he has watched his father work with willow since childhood, and that the moment he takes a bat in his hand he can tell whether it has life in it or is merely a piece of shaped wood. In his words, this is thirty years of skill and thirty years of knowledge, yet it never reached the world under his father’s own name, because he could not build a brand of his own. One day, returning from the office in Bengaluru, Saqlain thought: if his father has thirty years of experience and he has an understanding of the internet, why not give his father’s work a name?

He says that about 80 percent of the produce from Kashmir’s workshops goes to Meerut, Ludhiana and other parts of the country without any label. “No brand or label is affixed to these cricket bats; they are plain. With this in mind, I took the difficult decision to leave my job and started my startup under the name ‘Outplay’,” he said.

Saqlain claims that bats made from Kashmir willow are of higher quality and cheaper than those made from English willow. “The cricket bats used in the world are made either from English willow or Kashmir willow. Kashmiri bats are both better in quality and cheaper, but the problem is that our products do not get the marketing and publicity they deserve,” he said.

On the brand’s name, he says “Outplay” was chosen because the aim is to get ahead of everyone in the contest, and for him it is not merely a startup but an attempt to carry his father’s knowledge forward. The brand’s tagline is “Play Anyway”.

On the brand’s current stage, Saqlain said: “Our brand is still at an early stage. We have no distributor, no dealer and no showroom anywhere. Our products will be available only on our website and we will have direct contact with the customer. There will be no distributor or dealer in between, which will benefit the customer.” He said the brand has not yet launched but will soon, and that he has been working on it continuously for the past six to seven months.

According to its website, Outplay’s first bat, “ZERO”, is designed for hard tennis cricket, that is, cricket played with a hard tennis ball. It is being made from Kashmir willow and has a “Double Blade Scoop” profile. The website also offers sign-up for first-launch alerts via WhatsApp and email. In a video, Saqlain has said that he has no big team or funding and that much remains to be done, so he will build Outplay in public. He will show every stage on social media, from product and packaging to testing and marketing, and viewers’ questions and feedback will shape the journey.

Saqlain believes Kashmir is rich in resources but they need to be adapted to modern requirements and brought before the world. Drawing on his software background, he says he will build this work on modern technology lines. He also said difficulties will certainly arise in this new venture, but one has to endure hard times to achieve something.

It may be noted that cricket bat workshops operate in the Sangam and Bijbehara areas of Anantnag in the Kashmir Valley, and the bats made here are renowned for their quality. According to experts, the Valley’s workshops produce about 3 million cricket bats annually, generating revenue of Rs 300 crore, but willow trees, the raw material, are becoming scarce, threatening the industry’s survival.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Zahoor Hussain Bhat