So Iv finally got the bat Iv wanted for ages and also spent the most Iv spent in a bat in god knows how long.
Had our holiday cancelled for July which allowed this to be purchased but downside wife has been made redundant so will new certainly be my last purchase for a while but going out on a high.
This was purchased a few weeks back using the 20%off code at Talent cricket taking the price to just over £400 which is for this bat I feel a very good deal however still a lot of money.
So the bat is the L555 blade length so standard SH and the first thing I noticed was it’s HUGE. Only measured using a tape measure but true to GM listing the bat has 39mm edges and a totally full profile shape with a duck bill toe and a massive mass in the hitting area.
As you would imagine looks wise it’s stunning with 11 totally straight grains back and front and completely blemish free no marks specks what so ever. I have always liked 7-10 grains so 1 extra is a bonus lol.
Weight wise the bat is 2.10 bang on a has a GM pick up index of 3 which surprised me as picks up like a wand I would honestly have guessed 2.8 dead weight if I didn’t know weight was between 2.9 - 2.11 on the GM Website. Swell depth is 65mm according to GM so I assume that’s the spine height?
However the most notable difference to this and any other GM Iv owned is the pressing. This is much softer straight from the off even compared to my OLE neon this would easily be ready to go without any prep work which Iv always had to do with all other GM bats. Most of which Iv opened have been signature grade tbh so maybe that’s unfair to compare to but it really is notable how soft and springy this is tapping an old ball on it.
Few other bits of note, the icon stickers looks a million times better in the flesh than they do online etc and for a bat this stunning really allow the quality of willow to shine through. Handle to be seems a little thinner than the Neon and Siren I have but still fairly chunky but still a lovely semi oval shape. Only downside is the horrible hex grip so that will be changed
So in short something’s are worth waiting for and this has certainly been one of them.