Personally I think and have said before that it all comes down to the pressing. I do believe you get much more for your money if you but a mainstream bat from a cricket specialist and even better one that hand picks there bats. I have a couple of amazing bats from GM in 606 range from both Vitas and Argon. Both look amazing and have straight grains with no blemish as all.
I also have had some amazing bats from Aldred, Salix and Newbery in lower grade willow that play in my opinion as well as any bat I have including my Kudos and AJK that are £400 bats.
I do agree with GarratJ that bats that are cosmetically G1 do perform better at first but once the bat fully opens up and is knocked in well will play just as well as long as the maker has taken the time and care to press correctly. Do some larger brands press a bat harder to last longer and reduce returns, yes most definatly.
The question if bat makers take as much care over lower grades well I can only comment on Kember and most definatly the answer is he and Ben take the same care on any bat. A reason for this could be that if you take care in the production stage on occasions you can grade up from a G2 to G1 but its much easier if you do not take care to turn a G1 into a G2.
At the end of the day it there will always be people who believe you have so spend £400+ to get a true G1 pro bat and others that say the opposite that's what makes people like us talk on a forum.
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Topic: Blind Bat/stick testing... (Read 4105 times)