Not really, people tie grade to performance. Grade vs Price is seen as the value of the bat.
When you purchase a bike, you look at the spec - what material is the frame made from? What brakes does it have? What weight is it? The price is largely ignored, with the spec driving the perceived value of the thing. You compare specs, and find what you think is a well priced product.
With a cricket bat, there isn't much to go on. Grading is about the only spec going, it's important for internet sales - but it's a shame we haven't found anything better. Perhaps this is why people focus on edge size, or spine height. It's another way of perceiving how it will perform.
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I made a post similar to this a few months back:
"I don't think unique, organic products such as cricket bats are particularly suited to the traditional way of ecommerce sales. It leads to posts like this, where uneducated buyers attempt to perceive the value of a product - when actually, that just isn't really possible.
Cricket bats are unique. No two are the same. It's impossible to compare these things on paper, really. And it's a shame we haven't in 2014 found a better way to do these things than attempting to categorise these unique pieces of wood into 4 very ill-defined categories. Which really don't actually mean anything. It leads to baffling things, such as 'G2 Bleached Willow' or G1+++ Super pro.
If you want to compare the true value of a cricket bat, pick them up, smash them with a mallet, swing them around your local store, whatever you need to do to identify that bat is right for you. But attempting to compare a non-scientific product, with simple price metrics just isn't possible."
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Topic: Why do we care so much about the grading on a bat? (Read 23373 times)