Sanspareils & Greenlands and Sareen Sports are the biggest

By Pranbihanga Borpuzari

In a country where cricket is considered almost a religion, not just a game, the tools of the trade assume great significance. With the game having evolved to include various new formats-including the hugely successful T20 championships-the need for bats, balls and all other cricket equipment has increased manifold. And two companies located in the small town of Meerut have turned to be the biggest suppliers of such equipment. Sanspareils & Greenlands Pvt. Ltd (SG)
One of the companies which has tapped into this lucrative pie for many years now is Sanspareils & Greenlands Pvt. Ltd (SG). This company was started in 1979 after the merger of two family-owned firms-Sanspareils & Company and Greenlands & Company. The original company was started by Kidar Nath Anand and his brother Dwarka Nath Anand in 1931 in Sialkot, Pakistan and was primarily involved in the export of sports equipment. “India initially had very few goods to export and sports goods were one of the first few items which were exported from the country. There is no historical data to prove that but the industry found patronage from the British army based in the subcontinent. Between 1880 and 1890, sports equipment often needed repair and it was felt everything could not be carried over from the UK. Early manufacturing of sports equipment was to cater to this segment,” explains Kidar Nath’s youngest son, Trilok Nath Anand (65), Director, Sanspareils Greenlands (SG) Pvt. Ltd. Dwarka Nath was a frequent traveler abroad; Sanspareils was the name of a bicycle company in the UK which he read about in a magazine. He liked the name and thought of using it for their own company back home. No one is quite sure how the Greenlands part of the name came about, though Trilok Nath says while Sanspareils means unparalleled, Greenlands was probably picked up since it meant unexplored. “In those days, we were making racquets, footballs, cricket bats, cricket balls and almost any sport equipment that you can think of,” says Trilok Nath. With the partition of India, the two brothers moved to Agra along with the entire family and subsequently to Meerut around 1959. Although the family took the same business of manufacturing sports equipment, the period from 1947 to 1962 was one of great struggles. By then the second generation started joining the business. “My elder brother joined the company in 1960 while I joined in 1972 as a marketing executive,” says Trilok Nath. The youngsters were brimming with ideas and they decided to focus on something specific rather than doing every kind of sports equipment. The eldest brother, Karan Bir Anand, went abroad to study leather technology and came back to the company. Kailash Chandra Anand, who was the second brother, was a good cricketer and on Karan’s return the duo developed a very good ball after months of experimenting. The two of them decided to get into manufacturing of soft leather goods, which included cricket balls. The company also entered into an agreement with a company in the UK to manufacture protective equipment and that part of business grew steadily. Field of opportunities
By 1969, the company had successfully ventured into the UK and Australia while other brands had also started. Since labor cost was high abroad, many brands were looking at manufacturing in India with an Indian partner. Outsourcing, in a sense, had taken off for the sports equipment category. “We mainly exported to the UK, Australia and South Africa. After we entered into partnership with other brands, our confidence increased and the numbers started rising. Production for other sports equipment started going down. In 1978, we managed to get a plot of land at the Meerut Sports Complex,” says Trilok Nath. By 1981, the company shifted to its new 8,000 square yards factory at the complex and decided to start manufacturing cricket bats. “From five bats a day to 10 bats a day, we started picking up the rudiments of the trade. The right balance of the bat, the kind of handle needed, the workmanship which goes into it; was all picked up by us. We worked hard fine-tuning the products and, in 1982, launched our products in the Indian market,” says Trilok Nath. The company soon got a big adrenaline shot when India picked up the cricket World Cup in 1983. Focus on Maxxport
The third generation of SG—Paras Anand—joined in 2000 and since 2008 has been involved in marketing the SG brand and launched Maxxport. With exports dwindling to about 30 percent of its business, Paras’s Maxxport is important now. “We have a market share of 25-30 percent in cricket equipment. Maxxport has been running for a year. Its gamut includes apparel, footwear, bags etc, much like what international brands deal with. While some of the products are sourced from China, some are sourced from domestic suppliers,” says Paras. The demand for Maxxport has not been overwhelming, and Paras admits that it is a challenge, though the experience of the past 12 months has left him confident that this new move would work. SG has invested Rs. 8-10 crore for this project in the last 18 months. At peak capacity, SG manufactures 1,300-1,400 bats a day but the demand has slightly tapered now. SG also makes 60 dozen cricket balls daily. “Last year when India won the world cup, our sales saw a spurt. This year, everybody prepared for growth based on the market trends last year. No one wanted to under-supply and 20-30 percent more stock was prepared. But, as things stand, retail sales have been slow this year,” says Paras. Last fiscal, SG sold 3.5 lakh bats with revenue of Rs. 97 crore and for the current fiscal, it has a target of 4 lakh bats but may fall short. It plans to close this fiscal at Rs. 120 crore. With a headcount of 1,200 employees, cricket bats continue to be the largest contributor, accounting for 35 percent of its revenue. Maxxport is expected to bring in about Rs. 10 crore in revenue this year. “Being in a small place has meant we have been able to inspire a lot of people to work hard. That has been very satisfying,” says Trilok Nath. Sareen Sports Industries (SS)
When the winning sixer of World Cup Cricket 2011 came off Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s bat, many miles away the Sareen family in Meerut was elated. The sixer had come from a bat they manufacture-the SS Ton. The Sareen family migrated to Delhi from Sialkot in Pakistan where they were into the business of making shuttlecocks. The family relocated to Meerut and started the same business there. NK Sareen’s heart, however, was set on cricket. An avid cricketer in his college years, Sareen was sure he wanted to try his hand out in making cricket bats. In 1969, he started Sareen Sports Industries (SS) at the age of 21. “I visited Kashmir in 1965 and met all the suppliers for the willow. I started off in a small way with about 12 bats a day and came up with the brand name of Sunridges,” says Sareen. According to him, the name was chosen since it gave the perception of a bat made overseas and sounded similar to British brands. In 1976, SS launched its Ton brand in the Indian market and met great success. “Ton means hundred or a century and I thought it would be apt to name a brand of cricket bats as Ton. I had to make a lot of representation to register this trademark as Ton was a noun and one cannot register a noun. I had to go up to the highest court to get the brand registered,” recalls Sareen. The company got into the manufacture of cricket balls in 1980 and soft leather goods in 1985. Today, it produces between 550-600 bats, about 600 balls and 1,000 pieces of leg guards and gloves every day. New player
The second generation, in the form of Jatin Sareen, stepped into the business in 1996 as his father’s deteriorating health meant he had to take over crucial functions of production, exports and player management. “From my childhood, I was associated with top Indian cricketers like Vinod Kambli, Manoj Prabhakar and Syed Kirmani. These players taught me the qualities of a good bat and what they look for in a good bat,” says Jatin. When he joined SS, the brand was not doing well and competitors had steadily gained ground in the bat segment. “My role was to primarily make good bats and ensure international players started using our products. We tailormade our bats to meet players’ needs and slowly started finding acceptance in the Indian cricket team,” says Jatin. Cricket bats continue to be made from Kashmir and English willow but Jatin says SS bats are different in production methods, presentation and marketing. “We give importance to durability, pick-up and strokeplay,” adds Jatin. An English willow weighs between 1,100-1,360 grams with a width of 4.25 inches. While the bat cannot be longer than 38 inches, there is no restriction on the thickness of the blade but bat makers tend to keep it between 40-42 mm. Whenever the Indian team does well, English and Kashmir willow bats sell well but when Indian cricket is down, nothing sells. “At the moment, nothing is selling. The period between the last fiscal till April was amazing but business has been dipping since,” says Jatin. With a headcount of 130, the company did revenues of Rs. 35 crore last year and expects business to be flat this year. The vanguard of the company’s success is the Ton brand, which is now available in each of the cricket playing countries and contributes about 40 percent of its total revenues. While the company specializes in bats, it manufactures the entire range of equipment needed in cricket. The Meerut matrix
According to a National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council report, the sports goods cluster in Meerut has about 350 units, employing more than 15,000-16,000 people and producing goods worth Rs. 400 crore. The major products are items related to cricket, boxing gloves, footballs, badminton and tennis rackets. However, only items of cricket and boxing are of match quality. It is hard to put a size on the cricket equipment market in Meerut, given the highly fragmented units, but it is anywhere between Rs. 200-Rs. 220 crore. Meerut, as a sport industry hub, is essentially a child of the partition of India. Many Meerut households are involved in the stitching of cricket balls, with the profession being passed down from father to son. Another aspect of the skilled labor in Meerut is that most of them are settlers in the town, not seasonal migrants. This means the bigger firms can be more or less assured of the headcount in manufacturing. The major disadvantage in Meerut is that it is not close to its markets. The biggestmarket for cricket equipment is in the southern part of India and Meerut sits thousands of kilometers away. “There are infrastructure problems but the government has been receptive towards the industry. The cash subsidies we got during the 1970s and 1980s allowed us to plough the cash back into the company,” says Trilok Nath. However Jatin says, “We pay a development charge but there has been no development. Even basic municipality work like removal of garbage has to be done by us. Shortage of electricity is one of the biggest problems and we have to spend a considerable amount in running generators. Another worrying aspect is the diminishing number of youth taking to the profession. The young today prefer computers. The day is not far when mechanization of cricket bats will start. We are no longer competitive on the labor front.” Like most companies world over, Meerut’s bat industry may be reeling under the effects of the global slowdown now but as long as cricket continues to enjoy its cult status in India and many other parts of the world, this small town hopes to continue to make it big in the game. Related Posts     Count on Camry
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