Ramps has hardly done a fair review on any of the bats, it sounds like an assesment made from photos.
Its all about his personal preferences on looks and i doubt he actually hit a ball in anger with any of the bats.
I got the opposite impression. He clearly didn't like the look of the Woodworm bat, but as he said, its performance was superior. The article also has a picture of him with the bats at the nets. To be fair, I don't think he spent a solid session with these bats and so the amount of net time he had with each of them would have been minimal. Considering those limits, it seems to me to be a pretty honest appraisal (not necessarily an in depth review) on his part.
I used a mate's ibat Pro series (I believe it's 1st or 2nd grade willow) in the nets last season and it performed really well. The middle was a bit lower than what I'm used to, but that's hardly something to criticise. Something I noticed was that the shape/profile (minus the trademark hourglass upper section) of the bat looked strikingly similar to another team mate's SS Ton Orange bat. I certainly agree that the Woodworm stickers and bat model names are horrible. The marketing team should really come up with something a bit more mature and dignified.
Interestingly, the commercially available Woodworm bats are pretty heavily scalloped. I was surprised to learn that in Ramprakash's view, the Woodworm edged the Affinity Carbine - a bat with a much fuller profile. After reading so much about the about the Carbine, I would have thought that it would have blown away the rest of the field in such a review in performance, balance, pick up and looks.
My interested is piqued - I'll have to give my mate's Woodworm another crack this season.
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Topic: Mark Ramprakash Bat Review (Read 5188 times)