January 6, 2011

The Edge - innovation or gimmick?

Following on from the Dual T20 (double sided bat), GN have produced another novelty bat called The Edge for 2011.  Is this another case of letting the Marketing Department sniff glue once again?

The GN marketeers make a worthy opening line for The Edge, "Gray Nicolls continues to innovate the bat making process to keep pace with an ever changing game". Nothing wrong in that, although I thinks this innovation is more like the 'innovations' that appeared in the erstwhile Innovations Catalogue, which was full of things that were novel but mostly pointless. This is why I used the word novelty bat earlier.  It is in no way a genuine innovation.

GN stray further into a fantasy world by saying "The Edge’s handle is offset to combat any sideways movement in the pitch and aid the common batting fault of over balancing. Simple but hugely effective without having to learn a new shot or take any performance away from the blade."

Point 1. The tangled prose aside, what if the ball does not move sideways? It happens, a lot.

Point 2. True, the blades performance stays the same, but only if you un-train your eye-hand from years of practice of hitting the centre of a bat which is normally in line of the handle.  Otherwise you'll be hitting away from the middle, so performance is down a tad.  However, if you get a sideways moving ball in the right direction, then bingo, you hit the middle.

Point 3. If a bowler sees you with The Edge, is he not going to tailor his tactics to move the ball the opposite way, or not at all? "Oh look, he's got The Edge, I'll feed him some nice balls that move sideways so as not to make him look like a prat".

Point 4. Is over-balancing a common fault worth buying a special bat to correct, where a bit of simple coaching would suffice? Look at Alistair Cook, toppling over like a drunk last summer and no runs. Gets a bit of decent coaching and applies himself. Now, front foot inside the line of the ball, perfectly balanced, and 766 runs in an Ashes series down-under.

Point 5. Who is the target audience?  It's a low grade bat (retail price around £100 and below), so not for the serious cricketer.  Is it for school-kids? Surely not, for GN would lose all credibility among the coaches, and cause an ECB committee or two to splutter into their large glasses of claret at the damage it would do to its coaching and skills development programme.

Point 6. I could go on, but enough has been said. Wanting to un-pick the marketing blurb is making me as giddy as GN must have been when they dreamed it up.

So, The Edge can only be a mere novelty, not a true innovation in bat design.  But that nonetheless I commend GN for giving me a good laugh at the end of a difficult year in 2010.  I froth in anticipation of the next offering at the end of 2011.

p.s. it's also not on their website (yet) - is that a clue to its credibility?

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