Grains Vs Performance
- Introducing the Laver & Wood SPECIAL RESERVE
Happy New Year!
Please have a read of our January Newsletter below:
Here at Laver & Wood one of the main discussion topics we have with our customers revolves around the debate between looks and performance.
Examples of questions we get asked include:
- How does the number of grains affect a bat?
- Do bats with more grains perform better?
- Do bats with fewer grains last for longer?
- What is the deal with dark wood/light wood or a combination?
The aim in this newsletter is to give our opinion on the subject and to invite our readers to offer theirs.
Although personal opinion is of great importance when selecting a cleft we can say the following with a degree of certainty:
- Clefts with more grains perform well to begin with but ones with fewer grains tend to develop into more accomplished bats
The fact that bats with wider grains seem to develop further than ones with thinner grains revolves around their expected longer lifespan. A cleft with more grains tends to break up quicker than one with fewer grains so it therefore does not have the chance to develop as far. The more opportunity a bat has to hit a ball, the more chance it has to develop.
That having been said, this is the case only up to a point. Sometimes a bat can hit a ball too much and the cell structure of the surface can break down. This tends to result in decreased performance. It is due to this process that we recommend always tidying up and sanding your bat at the end of each season. This allows new wood to form the surface of the bat.
The dark wood/light wood issue involves heartwood (dark, from the middle of the tree) and sapwood (light, from towards the edge). Many people have claimed differing opinions about which one is best or even that it is better to have a combination. Our years of working in the bat-making industry have taught us that whether a bat is all sapwood, all heartwood or somewhere in between there appears to be practically zero difference in terms of overall performance.
The performance of a bat comes down to two factors: cell structure and pressing. A bat-maker may not be able to control the cell structure of a piece of willow but he must be adept at testing and judging his clefts. We, at Laver & Wood, test the performance of the willow at least four times during the bat-making process to ensure that the bats we make are up to our high standards.
The first testing stage is whilst the bat is still damp immediately after the initial pressing. This is then followed by a second test approximately thirty minutes later. After the cleft has then gone through our drying processes we test the performance again. If the cleft has passed all of these tests we then press it fully and test one further time. By this stage we know that we are well on the way to creating a top performing bat.
We test the performance in a variety of fashions, some more scientific than others. With James having made, and tested, more than 40,000 bats in his career he puts just as much emphasis on the feel of a bat as with the numbers the more scientific tests present. As with a lot of things, numbers and figures are great but we believe that it is really the feel of something that you can trust the most.
We completely understand that every cricketer has their own preferences regarding the looks of their perfect bat but it is clear that what a bat looks like, and how it performs, are two very different issues.
The latest edition to the Laver & Wood range – the Special Reserve – is for those people who place more emphasis on how a bat performs. These bats are made from our absolutely best performing clefts that do not quite satisfy the aesthetic requirements to be classed as one of our Grade 1 bats.
The Special Reserve is ideally suited to the player who is much more focussed on how far they want to hit the ball than how good the bat looks. We all want our bats to stand out from the crowd; it is just that the Special Reserve stands out predominantly on performance.
As stated above, this model of bat will not be to the taste of everyone but if you are someone who is focussed on using a bat that outperforms pretty much everything else out there then the Special Reserve is certainly the one for you.
As with our entire range of bats it is important to remember that they are designed and built for long life and lasting performance. All bats develop at different rates and the Special Reserve is no different. It is just that this new model will develop much further than your average cricket bat.
The Special Reserve is priced at NZ$495/A$419/£250/US$419.
Photos and further details can be viewed on our website:
http://www.laverwood.co.nz/spr_detail.php Our kindest regards,
The Laver & Wood Team
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Thank you from the
Laver & Wood Team
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