Custom Bats Cricket Forum
Equipment => Bats => Topic started by: Cover_Drive on February 02, 2012, 06:24:37 AM
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In your opinion which bat(s) are overrated?
Recently I hear a lot about Gray Nicolls Legend and people saying how it is amazing and how much they like etc etc.
For me that bat is extremely overrated, not a big fan of Gray Nicolls Legend to be honest.
What about you guys?
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In your opinion which bat(s) are overrated?
Recently I hear a lot about Gray Nicolls Legend and people saying how it is amazing and how much they like etc etc.
For me that bat is extremely overrated, not a big fan of Gray Nicolls Legend to be honest.
What about you guys?
I agree. It picks up alright, but there is so much concaving.
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Most GM bats. And Kookaburras. They do absolutely nothing for me!
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I had a GM a few years back and i broke within 6 game so was a real letdown. Also had a puma 4000 that was a plank.
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Very few people on here who buy a bat would actually give it a bad review. If you go through the review section, you will see what I mean.
There are some that do and they should be applauded, as these are the honest opinions we are really after.
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To be honest I feel any bat over £300/£350 to be overrated. You can't tell me a custom bat for around £200 performs any less than those that cost over 50%+ more. Just my opinion but I'm sure others will disagree. I just think paying for a mass produced bat with the same stickers you see the pros using with most of the bat cost going towards paying those pros is not for me any more.
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To be honest I feel any bat over £300/£350 to be overrated. You can't tell me a custom bat for around £200 performs any less than those that cost over 50%+ more. Just my opinion but I'm sure others will disagree. I just think paying for a mass produced bat with the same stickers you see the pros using with most of the bat cost going towards paying those pros is not for me any more.
Totally agree with this Kenibroo but that's just how it seems to work now. Young cricketers will always want to look like/play like their heroes, as we all did and maybe still do :) and parents or people less aware of gear will always stump up the cash. the forumites are an educated bunch who know their equipment And are sensible enough to not have to pay £££££s on a bat. Unless they want to then that's totally different. Personally i would rather use a forum brand or known batmaker pay my £200 - £280 or whatever the service cost is and take advantage of that personal aspect. I won't ever buy an off the shelf bat again after experiencing what's on offer when you know where to look :)
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To be honest I feel any bat over £300/£350 to be overrated. You can't tell me a custom bat for around £200 performs any less than those that cost over 50%+ more.
In my opinion you pay £300 from a big brand as you are guaranteed it will perform. You can pay £200 from a custom maker and sometimes its a bit hit and miss. I have had some stunning bats for round £200 which perform as well as any bat I have owned but also I have has some duds. But I have never had a bad top end bat from a big brand. Never. Just my opinion.
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In my opinion you pay £300 from a big brand as you are guaranteed it will perform. You can pay £200 from a custom maker and sometimes its a bit hit and miss. I have had some stunning bats for round £200 which perform as well as any bat I have owned but also I have has some duds. But I have never had a bad top end bat from a big brand. Never. Just my opinion.
i disagree with this so much!
with the amount of mass produced bats from kook,GN etc its impossible for all of them to be guns! i have seen a few kook 950's that are awfull!!! performance wise.
a small bat maker will give u a better performing bat because they will work in small amounts of willow and they survive of word of mouth!
since ive been on this forum i have NEVER had a bad bat!
3 x h4ls
2 x bluerooms
1 x lekka
1 x bulldog
1 x solitaire
all have been fantastic bats
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Once was given a brand new MB Sher Amin as a replacement for a broken bat. As it was there flagship bat at the time I was really disappointed with the performance on the bat.
The bat that had previously broken was a MB Sarfi which had easy outplayed it's replacement.
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I cant see how a £300+ bat from a big company will be any better than a £250 bat from a smaller bat master. I have seen smaller companies offering bats for £400 but im not sure the performance will be worth the extra £150 - £200?
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Very few people on here who buy a bat would actually give it a bad review. If you go through the review section, you will see what I mean.
There are some that do and they should be applauded, as these are the honest opinions we are really after.
But, lets be honest, in most instances they have goine to a shop and picked it up etc, and probably had a tap with a testing mallet, long before they bought the bat - or, alternately, they went to a good custom bat maker who did the same stuff themselves knowing the relative value to their reputations. You'd be disappointed if there were that many bad reviews in such circumstances...
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But, lets be honest, in most instances they have goine to a shop and picked it up etc, and probably had a tap with a testing mallet, long before they bought the bat - or, alternately, they went to a good custom bat maker who did the same stuff themselves knowing the relative value to their reputations. You'd be disappointed if there were that many bad reviews in such circumstances...
Having said that you do read loads of reviews saying 'This bats an absolute pro ping, low density gun of a bat, love it' and then 3 weeks later if's on here for sale saying they 'don't get along with it'
I think the novelty of a shiny new bat definitely effects peoples reviews.
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thing is having baught and sold a fair few bats,
its not because they are bad bats because most i have sold have been guns!
but its just that u try it and want to try something else
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I think many of us want to experiment with our bats and when we sell some of them it is not necessarily because we did not like them but more because we want to let go of one in order to experiment with another :D
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Having said that you do read loads of reviews saying 'This bats an absolute pro ping, low density gun of a bat, love it' and then 3 weeks later if's on here for sale saying they 'don't get along with it'
I think the novelty of a shiny new bat definitely effects peoples reviews.
IMO it's 100% the impending understanding they'll need to sell it ;)
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It's quite hard to state for example "the Redback Paradox is an overrated bat, because I once owned one and it was rubbish!".
I'm sure every batmaker has produced a bat that hasn't performed well from time to time. At the end of the day willow is a natural product and can't be strictly regulated like the production of iron for example.
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My view is that Laminates are overrated...
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I get all of that, but its easy enough to see how someone might not get along with a perfectly good bat - until the last three or four years (I'm 34 now) I was forever picking up bats that were just not right for me. Its only as I've learned more about my own game and have the experience of coaching better colts that I've come to some odd conclusions.
For what its worth, bats I would not have reviewed well - I had a top of the range Beast that was pretty rubbish, and a Warsop that was rather unwieldy, even if the willow was utterly lovely.
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i think this is a bit of a nonsense topic, because bats vary from bat to bat, e.g you could get an absolutely blinding gray nics legend and you could also get a not so good one
i think this thread should be most disappointing bats.........
My view is that Laminates are overrated...
i agree i wasnt as impressed with the laminate i had as i thought i would be, but i guess theres others out there that are world beaters.... its luck of the drawer in some cases IMO
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My point about laminates is that they are illegal, rare and expensive. Therefore everyone thinks they are amazing. Out of experience, they are good but not spectacularly better than others. That's what I mean.
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i think this thread should be most disappointing bats.........i agree i wasnt as impressed with the laminate i had as i thought i would be, but i guess theres others out there that are world beaters.... its luck of the drawer in some cases IMO
Lucky pants?
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If you get a superb quality Lam, then it may be 5-10% increase in performance than a standard bat, or that is the kind of increase in performance I have heard! But that's for a top notch one too! And if you get a very good standard bat, then this can be just as good or better than a decent Lam anyway, but without having to use a kosher bat!!
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On another note, I really think that some people seem to sell their bats before the willow is fully played in!
I have had 3 or 4 bats where I have purchased a bat and it starts off playing ok (at best!!)
But after a couple of hours in the nets, it starts to play in and the willow starts to loosen and then performance starts to improve!!
I have an Adidas and BAS which have done this and are now playing superbly well!!
And as for the Charlie French I purchased knocked in, that was not the most responsive of bats to start with. But 4 or 5 net sessions later, it is going like an absolute train!!! Pro-ping? Pah! I should coco!!
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people seem to be confusing over rated with over priced.
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people seem to be confusing over rated with over priced.
They have a tendency to be correlated. You emotionally want a bat to be better the more you pay for it.
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Alot of bats are over priced and over rated. Too many gimmicks these days.
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Fruit bats are over rated.
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In all fairness to the big brands, my two favourite bats have been gray nicolls pp's. I have also used many small brands but sometimes I find that because the bats are all different it can be hard to get one with the correct spec. The big brands can get big edges. With low weight but the smaller guys struggle without making the edges small.
That is not to say that the small brands are useless as custom made bats are great fun and relatively cheap.
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I've had a few GN, G&M and Kookaburra.
You can never really have a little handmade company which can be overrated
because of there reputation and the market share.
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I really don't get this topic.
it is a case of "i didn't like this model of bat because I got a dud" or "these bats are way to expensive so are a rip off"
ok - let's start with the dud model of bats -
bats and pressing and technology has improved out of sight in the last 10 years, that comes at a cost. Welcome to the free market. Some bats may not be perfect - but they are made from a natural product, so the will break etc
overseas - ie antipodean bats. The willow has to be shipped from the UK to NZ/Aus - and tax paid on this. the bats are crafted and then resold - but the pound is no longer AUD3 or more to the pound - the Pound has lost a lot of strength as it is politically expedient for it to be weak - to help investments and reduce our debt mountain.
then there is inflation - on willow prices on shipping prices and on TAX.
then there is import tax back to the UK
shock bats made overseas are suddenly very expensive.
then we have the big brands - their bats have gone up because their costs have gone up, players want more money, as their exposure is bigger than before - there are expensive CNC machines to pay for - and GM are not the only company who has to cover the cost on one of these machines.
It really shouldn't be a surprise that bats are massively more expensive than in the past.
Membership to this forum and the colossal discounts available as a result is a huge privilege and is massively undervalued. For example, the ability to get semi custom made TK bats for under £200 - these are £350 with newbery stickers on. seriously no bats are overrated these days, they are bits of wood you either like or don't like.
most bats that are traded on here haven't even been used, it is nuts.
rant over.
for now.
Ross, you are of course correct fruit bats are overrated, but they are a semi-endangered species are they not?
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didnt i say that ;)
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yes canners exactly what you said... ;)
i think this is a bit of a nonsense topic, because bats vary from bat to bat, e.g you could get an absolutely blinding gray nics legend and you could also get a not so good one
i think this thread should be most disappointing bats.........i agree i wasnt as impressed with the laminate i had as i thought i would be, but i guess theres others out there that are world beaters.... its luck of the drawer in some cases IMO
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I find it hard to grumble about the prices of things that aren't a necessity. Expensive bats are a luxury just like cars, yachts etc. Now I've found this forum I'll never buy an overpriced bat again I don't think. The Fruit Bat appreciation society will be fuming I'm sure. :)
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http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=30865913044
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well said Buzz .. if you can afford the pick of what you want it's never overrated, it might not perform how you would like it to in your hands but that doesn't mean it's not a whole world or awesome in someone else's. What are most frequently overrated are peoples opinions of their own batting skills, you can't blame a bat because you don't have the skills to use it. If you don't like over con caved bats don't buy one, there's plenty of shapes out there for everyone's tastes and budgets. If you get lucky and buy a cheapo grade 3 ugly mofo and it plays better than your 400 plus pound GM LE, consider yourself lucky you got a stonker, not that the more expensive bat is a stinker
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Lol
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I disagree with Buzz with costs increasing for big brands due to CNCs among other things. Since when did mechanization increase costs? Its mostly about player sponsorship.
I think the real issue is the expectation that brand X would be so much better than brand Y and the disappointment when it really is not. So it is not that the bats are not good but that marketing was quite misleading. But don't we see the same sort of thing for computers and electronics.
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I disagree with Buzz with costs increasing for big brands due to CNCs among other things. Since when did mechanization increase costs? Its mostly about player sponsorship.
how much do you think a CNC machine costs? !! Short term the costs are up - longer term the costs will be down - it also allows for a consistent product production which is important for a mass producing brand.
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I know how much they cost and there not cheap but depends what one you get as the gm one your talking £250,000-£500,000 I'd think due to complexity of machine and programming
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how much do you think a CNC machine costs? !! Short term the costs are up - longer term the costs will be down - it also allows for a consistent product production which is important for a mass producing brand.
Of course CNC machines are not cheap otherwise everyone would use them. I don't think many bat makers are as idealistic as we think they are.
Do they employ the same number of people per amounts of bats made? Of course not! With the kind of volumes that GM and the like churn out I don't think the investment into a CNC machine will drive prices up even for a short period. If it does it shows a lack of planning.
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GM are about the only ones making in house, so CNC machines shouldn't have a great impact on the rest of the big brands prices.
Rising costs of players and manufacture in India (for various reasons) is why prices go up. Very roughly speaking every £5 extra the maker pays, the end user pays approx £20.
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GM are about the only ones making in house, so CNC machines shouldn't have a great impact on the rest of the big brands prices.
Rising costs of players and manufacture in India (for various reasons) is why prices go up. Very roughly speaking every £5 extra the maker pays, the end user pays approx £20.
GM and TK aren't the only firms using a CNC machine.
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Tom, if Gray Nicholls have their own willow plantations. Should it be cheaper for them to manufacture bats in India than Indian brands?
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GM and TK aren't the only firms using a CNC machine.
Yes. But the majority of the big brands - Kookaburra, Slaz, Adidas, Puma, Nike, Mongoose, Newbery make no bats in house. So why would a bill of £500,000 for a cnc directly affect their prices?
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I have always thought woodworm to be quite disappointing for their bats life span.