Confirmed in an email from New Balance today, Cricmart are not a New Balance account, meaning the bats come from the grey market, hence the inability to assist customers with any sort of after sales, returns etc when things go wrong.
Not wanting to seem spiteful here, but having raised the issue with little success in private, and with no-one else willing to speak up, i feel i must comment.
Cricmart are not a sponsor of the forum, yet it seems a number of members are aware of them and aware of the member here on the forum associated with the business, who in my opinion clearly engages in pm selling. All of these things mean i regard them as fair game for detailed scrutiny, and I definitely feel that potential customers should be aware of the fact that they are not an official New Balance stockist.
We all know that cricket bats are a natural product, and it is inevitable that some bats that are sold will break, I don't know what the industry percentage is but I would suspect it is higher than many people think. As a genuine retailer, we work with the suppliers to rectify this situation whenever it happens to a customer. All warranty period repairs are free of charge and if a bat is beyond repair it will be replaced FOC. This isn't the case with Cricmart according to their returns policy and the experience mentioned by
@i12breakfree - so if a number of people purchase a bat from Cricmart, it is inevitable that one or more of those people will be hung out to dry, essentially throwing their money into the fire.