Custom Bats Cricket Forum
General Cricket => Players => Topic started by: petehosk on December 11, 2011, 10:35:36 AM
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Has he ever used a legit Puma?
Every time I have seen him there have been the tell-tale sign of the plasters stuck on the edges of the bats where the 'TON' usually is.
(http://i551.photobucket.com/albums/ii471/petehosk/4f80670a.jpg)
And on a couple of occasions he's even left the plasters off.
(http://i551.photobucket.com/albums/ii471/petehosk/835d88e5.jpg)
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Can't the TON be sanded off?
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He is a decent player and I'm not trying to pick on him, but what does everyone think of a player being sponsored by a company to use a brand but then using another brand in disguise? I know it goes on a lot, but what are people's thoughts on the practice?
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It's branded in and indented so no - can't be sanded out
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it can be sanded out they are only branded about 2mm
i sanded the ayrtek 1's out of my lam when i put puma stickers on
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And I'm sure that Tiwary will spend time and effort sanding all the bats he gets from SS, as he has so much free time to do that! Seriously :(
So what are everyones thoughts on this common practice?
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I don't think many people are actually aware that this goes on. If I asked half of my teammates they would just instantly presume that if a Puma sponsored player is using a bat with Puma sticker on then it surely must be a Puma!
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But one point is that some people would buy a bat because their favourite players uses that puma! When in reality they use something totally different. So is that fair for example?
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Lets face it though... This has been going on for years and years it certainly isn't a new thing and I wouldn't just point the finger at one player in particular
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I think Michael Clarke's Slazenger is actually a Laver.
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I think Michael Clarke's Slazenger is actually a Laver.
Any evidence to back that one up?
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The thing is with that Clarke rumour ^ is that you can't really prove it.
I know that at one point in his career NZ batsman Matt Sinclair used Laver bats, even though he was GM sponsored at the time. I'm fairly certain that Ian Bell has used a Fusion made bat previously, and also that Matt Prior has used Newbery. However, if all of the above is true, at least there is an air of mystery about it - it's all hush hush and hearsay - that's very different to what the Indian and Pakistani boys do - take the big bucks from a sponsor, but then show up with brandings like TON and SG all over the shop
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I don't see the difference really... As pete said someone is buying bats cause their fav player is using one... whether the makers stamp is on the edge or not they are still taking money from the sponsor aren't they.
If anything they are being more open about what they use by showing the makers stamp on the edge aren't they?
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I don't see the difference really... As pete said someone is buying bats cause their fav player is using one... whether the makers stamp is on the edge or not they are still taking money from the sponsor aren't they.
If anything they are being more open about what they use by showing the makers stamp on the edge aren't they?
Not really, as we may know what the TON logo means and who SS are, but I highly doubt that many would know about SS, especially if the bat is stickered as something else but has the TON logo still on.
Look at Australia, prior to this year only 1 major cricket specialist stocked SS bats and that was Kingsgrove in NSW. GCCC stocks them as well now, so more exposure for them.
Four brands which aren't really known in Australia are SS, BAS, CA and SG, and they would probably make alot of the well known brand bats between them. Even Adidas isn't really known in Australia, and I can olny think of only one first class player in Steven Okeefe (NSW Captain) who uses their gear.
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One of the oddest things i saw was Chad Keegan coming in to the chalet at the same time as me and picking up some Newbery made SS bats which all seemed the wrong way round to me!
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Not really, as we may know what the TON logo means and who SS are, but I highly doubt that many would know about SS, especially if the bat is stickered as something else but has the TON logo still on.
Look at Australia, prior to this year only 1 major cricket specialist stocked SS bats and that was Kingsgrove in NSW. GCCC stocks them as well now, so more exposure for them.
Four brands which aren't really known in Australia are SS, BAS, CA and SG, and they would probably make alot of the well known brand bats between them. Even Adidas isn't really known in Australia, and I can olny think of only one first class player in Steven Okeefe (NSW Captain) who uses their gear.
I think the only people who wouldn't know these brands would be non-cricketers Langer. All these bats are well enough known brands. Just because they haven't been stocked in Australia doesn't mean they aren't a well known brand.
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Personally, I think the practice of using one brand of bat which wears the stickers of another is pretty out of order. What they are essentially saying is that the brand that sponsors them can't make a bat good enough for them. I'm absolutely amazed that the likes of Puma, Slazenger etc allow this happen. If the 'big brands' money is good enough for the players then their equipment should be as well. If it is not then what are the sponsored players actually giving back to their sponsors in the way of feedback to ensure the quality of their gear improves to a level where it is good enough?
If I was the owner of Puma or similar and one of my sponsored players did that then they wouldn't be a sponsored player for much longer!
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Personally, I think the practice of using one brand of bat which wears the stickers of another is pretty out of order. What they are essentially saying is that the brand that sponsors them can't make a bat good enough for them. I'm absolutely amazed that the likes of Puma, Slazenger etc allow this happen. If the 'big brands' money is good enough for the players then their equipment should be as well. If it is not then what are the sponsored players actually giving back to their sponsors in the way of feedback to ensure the quality of their gear improves to a level where it is good enough?
If I was the owner of Puma or similar and one of my sponsored players did that then they wouldn't be a sponsored player for much longer!
It has nothing to do with how good the bat is... It's about showing the Labels on the bat..
So where does everyone here stand on English players showing sponsors on bats that don't even make cricket gear???
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One of the oddest things i saw was Chad Keegan coming in to the chalet at the same time as me and picking up some Newbery made SS bats which all seemed the wrong way round to me!
Chad Kegan was a legend haha when I went to see middlsex vs Durham a few years ago he had a pint with me
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Not really, as we may know what the TON logo means and who SS are, but I highly doubt that many would know about SS, especially if the bat is stickered as something else but has the TON logo still on.
Look at Australia, prior to this year only 1 major cricket specialist stocked SS bats and that was Kingsgrove in NSW. GCCC stocks them as well now, so more exposure for them.
Four brands which aren't really known in Australia are SS, BAS, CA and SG, and they would probably make alot of the well known brand bats between them. Even Adidas isn't really known in Australia, and I can olny think of only one first class player in Steven Okeefe (NSW Captain) who uses their gear.
Before I knew about this forum, I genuinely thought that there was such a bat as a Reebok Ton and surprisingly some ebay sellers even had such a bat!
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It has nothing to do with how good the bat is... It's about showing the Labels on the bat..
So where does everyone here stand on English players showing sponsors on bats that don't even make cricket gear???
Sorry, I may well be getting the wrong end of the stick here but that doesn't make any sense at all. ??? If it's not about the relative performance between the bats Puma supply him and the bats SS (or whomever it might be) supply him then why do it at all?
As for England players carrying bank sponsorship or Red Bull stickers etc then I see no problem with that at all. It's not like these brands are pretending to make any of the gear they are wearing is it?
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I'd like to see players using the brand of bats they advertise. But from my dealings with pros I know it's a lot more complicated to supply them something they deem suitable.
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I'd like to see players using the brand of bats they advertise. But from my dealings with pros I know it's a lot more complicated to supply them something they deem suitable.
Isn't that something they should work out before they sign then?
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Sorry, I may well be getting the wrong end of the stick here but that doesn't make any sense at all. ??? If it's not about the relative performance between the bats Puma supply him and the bats SS (or whomever it might be) supply him then why do it at all?
Sorry may not have worded that correctly
One word MONEY... They don't care what bat it is as long as it performs... What they do care about is how much money their sponsors will pay them for putting there stickers on there bats
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Isn't that something they should work out before they sign then?
It generally is. You send them samples. Their agent says yeh they're okay. Deal signed.
Then they use whatever they want. You're not going to cancel a deal with a player who gives you so much exposure and is in all your marketing material, just because his bat occasionally says TON on the edge or his bat is a different profile to the shop bats. If you did decide to cancel then it'd cost a fortune in lawyer fees, probably ending up in court.
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It generally is. You send them samples. Their agent says yeh they're okay. Deal signed.
Then they use whatever they want. You're not going to cancel a deal with a player who gives you so much exposure and is in all your marketing material, just because his bat occasionally says TON on the edge or his bat is a different profile to the shop bats.
Fair enough.
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I don't know anything about the bloke, but I just looked at Tiwary's stats, and his first class average is almost 60 (59.95) after 74 innings and 3957 runs (15 Centuries and 10 Half Centuries), so he must be pretty good. Anyone reckon he will play test's after Tendaulker and Dravid go?
Edit - Looks like he hasn't played any cricket outside of India though
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Question for you Tom:
Why do they use other bats?... Is it because the bats they use are better?.. The best?. Or they persieve to be the best?... Are the bats that they are sponsored by not good enough?
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Question for you Tom:
Why do they use other bats?... Is it because the bats they use are better?.. The best?. Or they persieve to be the best?... Are the bats that they are sponsored by not good enough?
Good question! I can't think of any reason why, in this instance, Rob Pack cannot produce a Puma (I assume he would make their pro bats??) at least as good as the SS Tiwary is using.
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Question for you Tom:
Why do they use other bats?... Is it because the bats they use are better?.. The best?. Or they persieve to be the best?... Are the bats that they are sponsored by not good enough?
Definitely not because the bats they get aren't good enough. I've never had one pro say a bat didn't ping.
It's a case of what they're used to. Handle flex, handle size and pressing (sometimes it felt hard, or too soft) were the main reasons I had agents complaining. They're hard things to rectify without a pro spending a day with the batmaker. Which is impossible if your pro is Australian and your factories are in India/England
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Definitely not because the bats they get aren't good enough. I've never had one pro say a bat didn't ping.
It's a case of what they're used to. Handle flex, handle size and pressing (sometimes it felt hard, or too soft) were the main reasons I had agents complaining. They're hard things to rectify without a pro spending a day with the batmaker. Which is impossible if your pro is Australian and your factories are in India/England
It couldn't be done by copying one of the bats used?.. Surely the "best" batmakers in the world could copy another bat?..
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They can copy another bat. But they can't copy the exact pressing techniques and handles.
You're also underestimating the power of the mind and superstition when it comes to pros and bats.
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It also depends how much time a company is willing to spend getting bats right for that one pro. For every pro bat we made we had to stop the production line to put 8 bats through the machine, of which 2 may be good enough.
I had to manage production for 40 pros and 4000 bats for customers. I had many disagreements with the CEO about it, but customers always came first for me. They were paying.
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And now the next part.....we know that some players use other brands and sticker them with their sponsors stickers.
When we had a visit to GM we were lucky enough to pick up one of Trott's bats....and it was a stunner!! It was stickered as an Icon but had a profile different from an Icon.
So another question I have is that if we know that the pros either sticker another brand OR the bats they are given by their sponsor have very little resemblance to the same model in the shops, then is it really worth buying a bat which you are buying because your favourite batsman supposedly uses?
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That's the power of marketing Pete! However, who from the forum is ever going to pay top dollar for that kind of bat when we have the contacts to get one handmade to whatever spec we want at a fraction of the cost :D
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And leading on from that question, why don't the companies actually make, for sale, the EXACT bats that their sponsored players choose to use?
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And leading on from that question, why don't the companies actually make, for sale, the EXACT bats that their sponsored players choose to use?
Because we'd have had a range of 40 bats, each varying heights, weights, profiles, handle shapes.
Even then they're not gonna be the same. You can't clone willow.
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Because we'd have had a range of 40 bats, each varying heights, weights, profiles, handle shapes.
Even then they're not gonna be the same. You can't clone willow.
You mean like most companies have already? :D I appreciate that no company would ever make an exact replica bat for every one of their sponsored players BUT I don't think it is asking too much for them to make at least one! Especially if they are looking to get well over £300 for it in the case of the GM players range!
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It goes on and we all know it goes on. Buit i think its a bit wrong, companies dont build a reputation and pay to sponsor a player just to him to pie them off for other brands and not even attempt to cover it properly, maybe a little disrespectful to osmeone who is giving you money for you to show off their stuff. But i think its the norm now, puma probably realise only the most eagle eyed will see it and so ignore the fact. But i am sure puma could get him a bat just as good.
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Yes. And GM ones I've seen were coming out a couple of oz's heavier than the players actual bats. Even they're not exact replicas.
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If we had the willow and time, we could have made exact replicas. But I seperated the 2, pro bats and shop bats. And concentrated on getting both as good as possible. Rather than making either the pro, or the punter, compromise.