sorry not to have replied sooner
tom, thanks for your suggestions, in reply:
- we found throw downs to be the quickest way to effectively test 40 bats with 5 batsmen over the course of 3 hours
- road test: we did suggest this at an editorial meeting a while back, and actually started one, but it fell by the wayside - i will investigate
- spec bats for each players: this would obviously be preferable but again, is not practical when we're testing 40 bats for five players (and that's only the shortlist). we did ask players to consider that some batsmight not be made to their spec
- punters as well as pros: this is something we have done in the past, and it worked well. this year we decided to use pros only, but next year who knows...
ayrtek - i take it you found a copy?
for anyone who has not seen the test yet -
and certificates will be in the post soon!