About DownUp Sports
Passionately owned and operated by former New Zealand Indoor Cricket Test players David Caldwell and Guy Coleman DownUp Sports has been the market leader in equipment specifically designed for Indoor Cricket for the last 10 years and is still the first choice of indoor cricketers of all levels all over the world.
Where did it start?
Prior to the 2010 World Cup in the Gold Coast, Australia David tried, unsuccessfully, to buy a new bat. “I felt a bit let down, playing indoor at an international level, it should be easy to get my hands on a quality indoor stick. It proved much harder than it needed to be which was frustrating".
Out of that frustration DownUp Sports was born.
I promised we’d change the way all players, not just international representatives, could access quality equipment, in particular bats designed specifically for indoor cricket. That’s where our tagline “designed by players for players” came from.
DownUp Sports was inundated with bat samples of all shapes, sizes and wood types from all over the world! “Some were ok, others I used to keep the fire burning in winter”. After asking around the NZ market one name kept popping up – James Laver of Laver & Wood. James is considered one of the best bat makers in the world today, a visit to his workshop quickly validated the high praise. After discussing the unique requirements of an indoor cricket bat with James we settled on our revolutionary Warrior bat profile now used by 100’s of indoor players around the world. It’s a profile we haven’t changed for 10 years, we haven’t needed to.
Our bats have the typical large profiles commonly requested by most players but simply pick up so much lighter than expected. We achieve this with outstanding craftmanship (read about James on the NEWS page).
The unique and immediately identifiable high spine, swell and concaved splice (and graphics) are unmatched in balance, pick up and size. Wood is carefully sculpted away from the areas it isn’t required and redistributed to the areas its needed most. Bats that look 2.10lbs pick up like they are 2.2lbs - 2.4lbs, that’s because they are. That’s the magic of James Laver.
Over the last 10 years the profile hasn’t changed but some of the design elements have; honeycomb handle inserts, blade lengths, handle shape and thickness have all been included in the bespoke Warrior bat. Whatever your needs, they will be met.
We ship globally so please contact us for anything, even if you just want to say hi! We want to talk to the Indoor Cricket community around the entire world!