Hi All,
Having purchased some sheets myself and a few CBF members popped down to Headingley today for a bowling machine session. The idea being to use the crictech sheets to get some feedback on htting areas. The session was basically split into 30 mins driving and 30 minutes cutting or pulling, whichever the guys felt was their most used shot. Average speed was approx 60mph for driving and 65mph-70mph for short bowling. We had to wack it up a little to get some bounce for the pulling.
Because we were using bowling machine balls, we had to apply a mesh back sheet onto the sticky backing of the crictech sheet. This presented the first comedy moment as we scrambled for tape to keep the sheet on the bat. The mesh reduces the sticky area to the edges and it just doesn't stay on without further taping. A few times in the session we had to do running repairs to keep the sheet on the bat face. In practise the sheet at first doesn't appear to be changing colour much but over the course of 20-30 balls it does start to pinpoint areas. Since their was 4 of us (me, ryan, whickers and poults), most got through 50-60 balls and that was enough to build a profile of the hitting areas.
My driving areas. Notice how high up the bat I strike it. Here's my cutting:-
Two distinct areas for cutting. Partly because I was reaching for a few and also due to a dodgy back my mobility wasn't great for getting across to the ball.
I didn't see all the other guys results but I think hitting areas were higher than many expected. Yes the bounce at Headingley is higher than some but driving and cutting isn't so different on most pitches outside. Some good feedback as a training tool imho. One other issue we had in practise was the sheets ripping after a few balls. It didn't happen to mine and could be due to the sheet not being flat but some got ripped to pieces nearly.
Uploading these images to the site isn't too much of a problem but you need to crop/rotate the image first. Once uploaded it's supposed to be placed in a bat diagram for further analysis. I also couldn't get it to fit into the bat diagram, even when I tried to crop the image to exactly match the bat.
Good value, yes. Useful tool yes. Perfect, not yet but a potentially a good aid for coaches and bat makers.
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Topic: Crictech Hotspot Sheet Review (Read 6615 times)