Working with world's best

A FORMER Ladies' College student was behind Australian captain Ricky Ponting's banned graphite bat. Holly Stubbert lives in Melbourne where she works for Kookaburra sport equipment company. She is in the island visiting family.

The 25-year-old research and development engineer was part of the team that designed the Ricky Ponting Kahuna bat that has a reinforced graphite back.

However, the guardians of the laws of cricket, the Marylebone Cricket Club, last year deemed that the bat broke them and banned it.

'I started off on the Ricky Ponting graphite bat,' said Stubbert.

'Technically, they were legal, but the MCC complained that they gave the batsman an unfair advantage.

'It conformed to all the laws of cricket. I did all the testing and it was no more powerful than a normal bat. The graphite was just used to strengthen the back.'

Ponting and other cricketers such as fellow Australian Test players batsman Mike Hussey and fast bowler Brett Lee endorse Kookaburra.

'We sponsor Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey and I've met them a couple of times,' she said.

'Mike Hussey is all right and Ricky Ponting talks very quickly indeed. He's also quite small.'

She tells a story of when Hussey and Ponting came into her office after Australia had whitewashed England 5-0 in the 2006-07 Ashes series.

They took great pride in graffitiing a poster that Stubbert had of the England Ashes winning team of 2005.

Ponting scribbled 'What a bunch of losers! 5-0' on it and signed it off with his nickname 'Punter'.

'I was away from my desk and when I came back they were stood around it giggling like schoolgirls,' said Stubbert.

'They had written on my poster. They were getting me back.'

After leaving Ladies' College, Stubbert went to Bath University where she studied sport engineering.

After graduating in 2004, she worked for a company based in Greenwich that was concerned with sport pitches.

It was when her partner was offered a job in Melbourne that she ended up in the Australian city.

The Sarnian applied to many companies in the sport industry and the only post that she was offered was working in Kookaburra's accounts department.

It was when she said she was leaving that the company created a position for her in research and development.

Along with her work on the controversial graphite bat, Stubbert also has been involved in designing prototype hockey sticks and her day-to-day role sees her help maintain the special machines that make their cricket and hockey balls.

With a great number of young Guernsey people among the many studying sport-related topics at university, it is well-known that there are a limited employment opportunities for them in that world.

Stubbert has a word of advice for them.

'I feel lucky as a lot of my friends who did the same course as me are now doing something very unrelated,' she said.

'I found it very difficult in Melbourne to find a sporting job. I rang lots of companies and Kookaburra were the only company that had something and it was in accounts.

'I just say don't give up and just pester the people you want to work for.

'Even if what you get is just a foot in door, if you can prove to people that you are capable of more, they will recognise that.'