Does it? Really? Well let’s go back to the MMi3 and take a look. It is designed to improve the power per shot, and it does this by putting the majority of the weight further from the pivot point, increasing the velocity of the chunk of wood hitting the ball and therefore the momentum, which is transferred to the ball, using the same principle as the golf club.
The Ultra (and New Profile) also put the majority of the wood further from the pivot point to achieve the same thing. Both the MMi3 and Ultra have large meaty lower blades with big edges and although different shaped backs, offer a similar answer to the placement of the bat mass.
But the Mongoose doesn’t have a splice? Well it does, you just can’t see it. Remember the issue with the Mongoose ears that needed trimming? Those lengths of willow that were a part of the blade that extended too far up the handle and therefore broke Law 6? The splice is there, it’s simply that the blade has been cleverly shaped to look like a part of the handle, which is why it gets so fat towards the bottom... And why the blade appears only to be half the size of a standard bat!
The Lavers still have a full length blade though… Well, yes they do, but think about the complaints from club cricketers about the MMi3, in that with a canny bowler it becomes very difficult to play anything slightly short or properly back of a length – you have no willow to hit it with (not a problem for Pros, I concede, but their shot decision is made far more quickly than your average club cricketer so they give themselves time). Even the Stig had difficulties...
That long handle from the MMi3? Well it’s still there (sort of) in the Ultra. The thin top part of the bat is where the MMi3 handle would be, and instead of leaving you with a rod, you have a full width blade that, while not having any power, still allows you to defend a short ball and edge a few past the keeper! And of course it aids balance as the weight distribution is subtly different. It’s all really in the weight distribution.
Having one of each, when you hit the ball with the Ultra, it feels just like it does with the Mongoose, but as a lower order club cricketer, I feel that bit more confident as I don’t have the same worries with the short ball…
We’ve seen the evolution of this idea even further with the Legacy product that Laver produce... It takes the MMi concept even further as there isn’t even a toe so to speak!
But has this been done before in a cricket bat? Well, yes, I think it has in the Slazenger V12 of the eighties, I just don't believe that at the time the pressing and drying was quite so capable of producing such a big bat...
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Am I just being a bat geek? What do you think?
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Topic: Cricket Bat Evolution; How the Laver Ultra takes the MMi3 concept a step further (Read 5507 times)