How to strap a Quest controller to a cricket bat

By the RealBat Cricket VR team · Updated 26 October 2026 · 6 min read

What you need

• A cricket bat. Any bat works: a full-size willow bat, a tennis-ball bat or a light plastic one. The left-handed bat in this guide is a small light blue plastic bat; the right-handed one is a full-size bat with an orange grip. A lighter bat is easier to control indoors.
• One Meta Quest Touch controller. Quest 3 and 3S Touch Plus controllers and Quest 2 Touch controllers both work.
• Strong tape. Clear packing tape is what we use: it holds hard and you can see the controller through it. Electrical tape or hook-and-loop straps work too, as long as nothing slips when you swing hard.
• Scissors, and a clear space to play in.

Where the controller goes

Put the controller on the back of the bat (the side with the spine, away from where you'd hit the ball), at the very top of the blade, just below the handle. Lay its grip along the bat and keep its button face pointing out, away from the wood.

Why there:

• The weight stays near your hands, so the bat still swings like a bat, not a hammer.
• Your hands stay off it. Your bottom hand sits just above it on the handle: close, but never covering it.
• The hitting face stays clear, and the controller is away from the toe, which is the part of the bat that hits the floor and furniture.
• The headset can see it. The controller is tracked by lights under its plastic: in the ring on Quest 2 controllers, under the button face on Quest 3 and 3S Touch Plus controllers. Facing out and uncovered, those lights stay in view through most shots.

Right-handed batters

Lay the bat on a table with its back (the controller side) facing up and the handle pointing away from you. For a right-handed batter, the controller's trigger points to the left edge of the bat. Pick the bat up into your stance and the controller sits just under your bottom hand, button face out.

Left-handed batters

A left-hander's mount is the mirror image: the same place on the back of the bat, turned round 180°. With the bat on the table, back up and handle away from you, the trigger points to the right edge. Don't just use a right-hander's bat as it is: it will still work after calibration, but the controller faces the wrong way through your shots and the headset loses sight of it more often.

In RealBat Cricket VR, also set your batting hand to left in Settings.

How to tape it tight

1. Clean the batWipe off dust and grip powder where the controller goes, so the tape bites.
2. Hold the controller in placeBack of the bat, top of the blade, button face out, trigger to the left edge for a right-hander or the right edge for a left-hander. Tuck the wrist strap away.
3. Wrap the grip to the batRun the tape round the controller's grip and the blade several times, pulling it tight on every turn. This is the wrap that stops it rotating.
4. Wrap above and belowAdd wraps round the top of the controller where it meets the handle, and round the blade just below it. Keep tape off the button face, and off the ring on Quest 2 controllers.
5. Test itGrip the controller and try to twist it. If it moves at all, add more tape: a mount that shifts by a few millimetres in a swing moves the virtual bat by more at the toe.

Calibrate it in the game

The game has to know exactly where on the bat the controller sits, or the bat you see won't match the bat you hold. In RealBat Cricket VR it takes a few seconds:

1. Choose Bat attachmentWhen the game asks about your bat, choose Bat attachment instead of Just the controller. You can change it later in Settings.
2. Line it upThe game switches to passthrough so you can see your real bat, and shows a bat outline. Hold your bat against it.
3. Lock itTap and release A or X. Every tap locks it again, so fine-tune until the virtual blade sits on the real one, edge to edge.

Step by step, with screenshots from the headset: how to calibrate a real bat in VR cricket.

The game saves it in a bat profile, so you calibrate once per bat, not every session. Keep one profile for the right-hander's bat and one for the left-hander's if you share a headset. If the tape is ever redone, lock it again.

What it looks like in play

Once it's locked, you bat the way you would in the nets: proper grip, full backlift, a real follow-through. The bat's weight brings back the feel a bare controller doesn't have.

Common problems

• The virtual bat is offset from the real one. Calibrate again, holding the bat still against the outline when you lock it.
• The bat jumps or floats on big shots. The headset briefly lost sight of the controller. Check nothing covers the button face (or the ring on Quest 2), and that it faces the right way for your batting hand. For the steadiest tracking, tape a second controller to the other face: see two controllers on one bat.
• It was right yesterday and wrong today. The tape has stretched or slipped. Re-tape it tight and lock it again.
• The controller turns off mid-session. Change the battery before you tape it, and keep the battery cover reachable if you can, so you aren't cutting tape off every week.

For more on batting with a real bat, including two-controller tracking, read how to use a real cricket bat in VR. New to all this? Start with our complete guide to VR cricket.