definitely my mind set now is that due to CBF/ebay/Gumtree etc it is so much easier than 15 years ago to get second hand bats, i can have 5+ 'played in' bats (far better quality than i can afford new + ready to bat day i get them) in the house for the cost of 1 top of the range - also in my weird logic i think a used bat is less likely to break than a new one (i am terrible at "knock in"!!!) last time i brought a brand new bat to use myself (over 10 years ago) i treated it like it was made out of crystal!!!! i would only use it if we were using top of the range balls - so it never saw light of day in league games with the bulk buy bat breakers!!!! - madness!!!!