Make that 3 in 3 - and another budget offering!
Front and Back Shots
Profile Shots
Bowing and Grooves
Labels and others
Specs/Info:- Weight - 2lb 8.7oz
- Spine - 60-61mm
- Edge - 33-34mm
- Shoulders - 12-13mm
- Splice - 34.5mm
- Toe Edge - 18mm
- Toe Centre - 25mm
- Face Camber - Semi-Rounded - 4mm
- Bow - Moderate
- Handle - Lovely medium-thick oval handle
- Concaving - Grooved in the flanks, and convex in the central 50mm
- Width - 107mm front and back
- Price - �190 RRP, �150 is a pretty typical price to find them at
- Finish - Natural with a branded toe guard
- Toe shape - Semi-Rounded
[/size]This particular Ridgeback has 6 wide grains, with some heartwood on the LH outside edge. This particular one was picked out for me from Talent Cricket a long while back, and bouncing a ball on it, it feels pretty springy and responsive, but a touch soft. It will need probably about 2-3 hours of prep work with the mallet. (As much as I love that they've included a preparation handbook, I do think 6 hours is a bit overkill) The Probe is the entry grade offering - in line with the 6.1 grade, and you'd say this one is quite a clean looking blade, and G3 wouldn't be too harsh or generous. However if it was upgraded to a Ridgeback 2000 - you'd probably feel like you'd been short changed with a £110 bump in RRP. (The 2000 is G3 and has an RRP of £300)Pick up wise - well, anything at that weight will feel light for me! The medium-thick oval handle really does help enhance the feel of the bat in your hands, and the Octopus grip will be aiding in the thickness department. It does feel like there's a bit of weight towards the toe, but nothing too drastic or surprising, given the way the wood has been distributed. That mid-low swell is really an excellent position for a good number of players, and coupled with the oval handle will appeal to many who really like to meet the ball on the front foot and drive, especially on the lower bounce wickets we have in the UK. The handle has a sticker on it with 'Rajkumar', and underneath that one it seems like it has a sticker with 'yellow' printed. Who knows what that means.
Shape wise, the Ridgeback has that sort of iconic feel to me, it feels almost like a predecessor of my 2nd ever bat - the Genesis Tornado (G2 offering, which was subsequently named Whirlwind the following season). The stickers also really what drew me in, I think the first time I saw them was during the Bushfire relief match. The green, gold and red with the big white Kookaburra just give me the Australian retro feel - and brings me back to over a decade ago when I would spend hours watching footage from Robelinda2's channel. (RIP Channel) The finishing of the bat is... It's okay, acceptable I guess for mass produced retail bats. It's certainly not poor, but obviously not quite up to the standards of most boutique makers here. The green, red and gold grip really does seem to complete the look as a whole of the bat.
All in all, I've been pretty happy with this Ridgeback Probe - Kookaburra have definitely invested the time and put in good effort to make sure that their retros are a very good offering. The ridges are pretty much spot on, the modernisation of the shape has definitely kept the identity of the old Ridgeback, while offering a slightly more attractive profile size wise to the consumers. I think maybe for the first time, I feel they've done retros better than Gray Nicolls this year
The one thing I wish that the companies doing retros would adopt though is the traditional round face - but with the obsession with edge size, sadly we may not see much of that!
Hopefully I've not missed anything, and please do ask questions if you have any, or just point out if I'm just writing a whole load of dross etc. You'll save my time, and save anyone else's time spent on reading my drivel
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Topic: Kookaburra Ridgeback Probe Review (Read 1165 times)