"When India win the demand for cricket bats increases manifold," said Ahmed, 28, who owns Goodluck Sports -- a cricket bat manufacturing business that ships more than 20,000 bats annually to other states of India.

"We did very good business during the cricket world cup and our sales increased by 70 percent," said Ahmed, whose grandfather Ghulam Nabi started the business some 35 years ago.

India reached the final in March this year but were beaten by Australia.

During the world cup Ahmed's firm sent more than 30,000 bats to the cricket-crazy Indian cities of Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta and Hyderabad.

The number would have been higher had India won the cup, said Ahmed.

Mehraj-u-Din, 32, who works in an adjoining workshop, said bat makers are expecting good business this year as leading cricket-playing nations will be involved in various tournaments on the subcontinent.

India this month host New Zealand for two Tests with Australia joining in later for a triangular one-day tournament.

Pakistan, meanwhile, has started playing South Africa in Pakistan.

"Direct telecast of matches lures youths to the game with the result there is more demand for our bats," says Gul Mohammed Dar, 48, another manufacturer.

Revolt-wracked Kashmir is famed for its excellent willow bats which are sold for between 100 and 700 rupees (two and 15 dollars) but which, after reaching the Indian markets, are re-sold at double that price.

"Unfortunately our bats are not used by the international players," said Ahmed.

"They prefer English willow which is light but hard and regarded as best for stroke making."

Fresh willow takes seven months to dry before machines and men work on small bat-size willow blocks to give them the shape of cricket bats.

But the industry that has survived the 14-year-old anti-Indian insurgency is facing problems on other fronts.

"In the next five years we will have acute shortage of willow in Kashmir," said Abdul Majeed, deputy head of the 250-member Sports Goods Manufacturing Association of Kashmir.

"People are more interested in cultivating fast-growing poplar than willow," Majeed said at his manufacturing unit named Decent Sports at Halmulla, 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Srinagar, the summer capital.

Majeed's association is also angry with the state government for allowing raw willow to be exported to the neighbouring state of Punjab.

"Our raw willow is being sold for peanuts to sports goods manufacturers from outside the state," he said.

Majeed and other manufacturers say that the government has allowed only 150,000 bat-sized planks, known as clifts, to be exported outside the state annually.

"But I tell you more than one million clifts find their way into Punjab courtesy of people with vested interests, including officials," said Majeed.

"If this is not stopped the art of making cricket bats will soon go into oblivion in Kashmir," he said, advocating a ban on raw willow exports.

The Kashmir industry employs some 10,000 local people and collectively exports nearly a million bats outside the state.

One of India's first sports goods factories was set up in Jammu, the restive state's southern winter capital, way back in 1938 by the then king of Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh. The Maharaja was very fond of cricket.

Indian Kashmir has hosted two one-day international cricket matches -- between India and West Indies in 1983 and between India and Australia in 1986.

Three years later an armed anti-Indian insurgency broke out in the region that has so far left 39,500 people dead. Separatists put the toll at between 80,000 and 100,000.

The region's local government is trying hard to bring international cricket back to the region.

"If international cricket returns we will have lot of local business," said Ahmed Dar, another manufacturer.