I personally care about grading because I fear makers/retailers are 99.9% of the time, just looking to make the most they can. If that means making a ugly bat a grade 1/2 and saying it's based on 'performance', or saying 'ah, but there are not guidelines so we can do what we want', then to me they are just saying 'pay up or shut up'.
While people then turn around saying 'ah, so just go somewhere else then, market forces blah blah'... does that really work?? no.. You know as well as I do that all that happens is people just keep raising the prices and boom.. suddenly we the consumer are paying more and more and there is nothing you can do about it.
That's why I get annoyed when I see bats that don't seem value for money BUT it is a personal opinion and I suspect most people don't care and merely care about telling people 'I payed £300 for this, it must be better than yours'.
Each to their own, but this is what retailers thrive off as these are the customers to target and cash in.
(not saying it's any one retailers fault, just the way our western economies are now. All about the profit and not about actually providing genuine competition. we all want to earn 100k a year for doing feck all and that's what business leaders are aiming for.. max profit for as little work as possible.)
Ok just came across this thread from a while ago. Pro is right you need to grade the willow to keep things in some sort of perspective of pricing. You wouldnt buy a paste diamond ring at the same price as a top end diamond. It is true that unfortunately people in industry are in the main trying to make maximum profit for doing stuff all. This comes down to share holders etc so they need to to be able to feed all the hungry mouths looking for return in their company. These people investing give these companies state of the art industrial units and factories churning out products at a rapid rate. I noticed jaguar on the news the other day opening a new factory with the ability to turn an engine out every 40 seconds or something, just incredible.
In the bat business I am relatively new to it and have no investors. The only financial investor is me and I have invested more time than money can buy to learn the process, and am still learning. In an ideal world everyone would buy there bats from their local bat maker and not opting for labels because the professionals are using them as a hell of a lot of those aren't even the label that are on them and secondly there are not many professionals who actually get bats made for them anymore, and all the imports that come over from India and Pakistan and often not legitimately as many are basically smuggled in and no taxes paid on them.
Now the cost of willow increases every year unfortunately. Most of this I imagine is down to wage increases etc. now here's something to think about, I may be wrong but if you had a good quality local bat maker of which most areas would have had one at one time and the majority of local people went to him to make your bat by hand to your specs that would guarantee him steady income every year, therefore he would be in a position to be able to drop his prices, that's presuming that he isn't greedy and is happy making a good steady living and not after world domination with his product (I'd certainly be happy with that for sure). This would open up the market to more bespoke companies and help keep more of our english willow in this country.
People are nieave in this day and age I'm afraid. It's like the golf industry you see hundreds of golfers walking round with the most expensive kit that you could possibly buy yet they are still hacking it around struggling to play to 20 handicap, my grandad was Derbyshire champion and he had an old set of bladed clubs and a pencil bag to carry them in and played off scratch, they don't realise that it's what's holding onto the club that makes the real impact. It's the same with a cricket bat. You have to work hard to get good there is no instant fix, there is no bat that will suddenly make you into kumar sangakkara or Matthew Hayden the only way to get better is practice, Yes certain bats give you a confidence when you know it's a performer for sure. I only ever had one bat I didn't get on with and that was a duncan fearnley 405, it was a plank and I was gutted as i worshipped fearnley bats but didn't realise at the time he wasn't making them anymore. Now when I was playing professionally I started with gray nicholls and then Was with chase when robin smith started that up. Players just got sent bats from their sponsor in the weight range they wanted and got on with it, very very rarely did they ditch them because they were the wrong shape or the swell was in the wrong place. They were playing on fast county and international tracks with a shape of bat that today people would say we're suitable for low bounce tracks. The fact is they were bloody good players and got on with it. A bad workman always blames his tools.
I would advise anyone to talk to their bat maker and if they understand the game and what your like as a player they will have some idea of producing a bat that would be as good as any professionals bat if they can press properly and are fitting quality handles.
I am an idealist and someone who is probably not realistic. I personally as bat maker would love to have constant regular work enabling me to take less profit on each item but keeping me going every day of the week consistently. For me it's a lifestyle, I'm not a executive business minded person. I know what I want and I am stubborn and will bite my nose off to spite my face in many ways, I've always done it I wouldn't play cricket for money when I came out the professional game because I didn't agree with it, I couldn't take money from my team mates. I could have made a fortune when I needed it and yet still when I play the odd game I get abused because people don't believe I'm not playing for money. That sums it up to me it's the way of the world now that people think everything has to be done because of money. Hence I'm an idealist not a millionaire I want to do this because I love it, I want to help give people advise not only on bats but cricket when they come to see me because I have been fortunate to have played for a living
So to finish this little piece trust your small bat makers here in the UK they work hard, be loyal you will get looked after. Work hard at your game there is no quick fix getting rid of a bat because your not scoring runs with it, it isn't the reason behind the slump look closer to home as an individual. Changing your bat won't change the errors in your technique and judgement only practice can do that. The more you support UK products the better the chance that the prices will get better. Not with everyone obviously as not everyone will be doing this for the same reasons but theirs more chance.
Author
Topic: Why do we care so much about the grading on a bat? (Read 23369 times)