So after a couple of years of putting cricket on the back-burner I decided that this year I wanted to play properly again. And of course that means some proper willow. So I got in touch with the gentlemen at Blank Bats to find what would be my 4th bat from them. It ended up being numbers 4 and 5 as you will soon see!
Now most people upon joining this forum become more specific about their bat requirements, go through custom/bespoke experiences etc. And why not? Its a wonderful option for the club player to go and have a new bat made to their exact specifications.
I however have gone the other way. Now I was never the fussiest about bats anyway, the first two hundreds I scored were with a borrowed bat, but had tried loads of different shapes and weights from various off the shelf and custom brands since joining CBF. Since I had my first Blank Bat though (
http://custombats.co.uk/cbforum/index.php?topic=15725.0) I have tended to specify 3 things to Tai and asked for the best performing bat with those specifications. No real interest in profile/edge size/grains etc. Its all about performance
I trust him to meet my requirements and I've never been unhappy. Just a few phone calls or whatsapp messages and the bat is on its way. The first time was buying blind but everything after that is just about trusting the company/product
That first BB above was my match bat for 2 years and the best performing bat I've ever had. The 2nd was the T20 model which again I used in cup games for 2 years before selling to fund some travel. The 3rd became my best mates match bat for 2 seasons and will be again this year. Below are the latest two, numbers 4 and 5.
I asked for something around 2.9 with a mid-placed middle and the standard BB oval handle. It was around the time when there was alot of interest in the 'net' bats from BB and I managed to get one of those at 2.8 aswell. Im sure the more eagle-eyes forum members will recognize the shapes. Apologies for the quality, usual iPhone problems
First impressions - quality finish to both bats, prefer the black colour scheme in the flesh. Cant find my mallet but have an old ball here and the middle seems longer on the L.E (black stickers) as I guess you would expect. Both these bats have the lovely deep almost soft thud that I have only experienced from the soft pressing of the BB bat-maker. Overall I'm delighted and it certainly softens the blow of moving from 30 degree sunshine to 4 degrees of wet misery in the last 24 hours
Author
Topic: 4 & 5 (Read 6424 times)