Ever since the surprise announcement that Valve was working on a sequel to Left 4 Dead, which is set to ship later in 2009, the developer has let out a trickle of news related to the title, showing players the improvements that would be implemented as compared with the first game in the series.

It's rather unusual for Valve to iterate so quickly on a particular game design but, from what we've seen so far, the sequel is shaping up nicely, with one of the most interesting additions being that of melee weapons, which can be used with surprising effectiveness to take out zombie hordes.

Valve has recently revealed another weapon that will appear in Left 4 Dead 2 and it’s a cricket bat, with the announcement set to coincide with the first game of the Ashes series between Australia and England. It joins an ever expanding line up that includes a frying pan and a chainsaw.

The bat could be slow, as you need to swing to build up power, but players will probably get a bonus from using it, possibly the ability to knock the heads off one zombie and take out another one, in a very cricket-like fashion. Although it has confirmed it as a working weapon, Valve is not saying how it will be used and what its effects will be.

Left 4 Dead 2 is also set to offer other enhancements, some of them pretty radical. Thus, players will be able to fight in the light of the sun, holding off zombies in the suburbs of New Orleans, new types of infected enemies will appear to make tactics developed for the first game in the series useless, while Witches will be getting the chance to move around and assault players directly. Left 4 Dead 2 arrives for the PC and the Xbox 360 on November 20.