Which bat for new season????

Yet still couldn't find the right forum? Never mind, welcome aboard anyway.

If you were to give Bill a ring at fusion, or visit their farm(in cheshire) he can custom make a bat for you, from some amzing willow, when i chose my bat at their farm(they are really friendly people and will try to help anyone) they showed me a bat they had made for Kadeer Ali, for use in twenty20, using a technique where the bat is made of 2 peices of wood(i.e. face and edges was one, the back was another) and they put a honey comb thing inside, so you get an extremely big middle for less weight(so a heavy bat could get a really big middle)

they also showed me the bat that they lent to Sean Irvine for the C&G final, which he scored a hundred with, it had 3 peices of wood and was probably about double, or triple the size of most middles at that weight

anyway you should consider ringing him, or visiting - no obligation to buy anything etc

hope this helps

Thanks chaps. Great advice. Will look at the Fusion and the MB Malik too!

My father-in-law lives up in Cheshire, so i think i may visit the factory when they next go up for a couple of days!

Crick, if i wanted a custom bat made to my own spec, how long would the process take from visiting them for the first time, to leaving with the bat in my hand??

depends on whether you want to visit to try it or not,

i.e. what i think will happen, is that you ring up etc tell him what your looking for, he will either make it before you visit, so you may leave with it that day, or he may want you to visit, so you can explain exactly what you want, then i guess that if you stay nearby for a couple of days you could visit to make sure the weight etc is all good, if not it would probably be that he sends it, i guess within a couple days of you visiting, then if its too heavy than you send it back to have some weight taken off and then you receive it back from him, in all i guess the whole process wouldn't take more than a week!

he's a really nice guy so i wouldn't hesitate to call him and discuss

hope this helps,

These ideas are great, but if you're looking for an off-the-shelf bat then I'd suggest these. If your looking for power with a blanced pick-up, in a well-known brand, then puma velocity's are excellent bats for the big hitter, and will fit nicely into that budget ($250AUD over here for a 4000). My friend scored his maiden century with one, before even knocking it in properly (not a good idea though). GM Maxi's also offer explosive power and big hitting zones. I also know people who own these, and attest to its excellent quality of build and power. If you don't mind Gray-Nicolls bats then try a pheonix beast (these are an absolute monster of a bat). Finally there's the MRF bats. According to my local cricket store, the only MRF's worth buying however, (budget permitting) are the Wizard and Genius. The others are just cheaper replicas of these two.

Hope this helps ;)