We are some of the first players to use the New Balance Cricket Bats for 2023! In this Video, Rich and Neil put each of the bats through its paces and give you their honest opinion on each!
We are back again and this time it is the New Balance cricket bat review, but with a difference as we have been given the chance to use the pads and gloves associated with each of the different cricket bat families.
Joe Root and Steve Smith use New Balance cricket equipment, so the cricket bats must be good!
Great colourways. You will look like Captain America but that doesn’t matter. This is the Technical Cricket range, and overall, the bat looks good. There are four colours on the grip, and it has different textures to it at different points of the handle, which looks very funky.
Technical Specs from New Balance
It has lots of wood in the middle section of the bat, which gives the bat a middle range to the sweet spot, rather than low middle or a high middle. This model has a high spine and that helps to give the bat a well-balanced pick up. Finished off with a rounded toe with a toe guard.
Performance Review - In the Nets
It has a lovely pick-up, very similar to the Gunn and Moore Diamond. The shape is so good that it will make a heavy bat feel lighter. I thought the handle had a thicker feel to it, but Neil didn’t notice that. What an amazing piece of wood we had to use. The bat performs beautifully when you hit it in the strike zone but if you go above or below that it isn’t quite so good.
What type of player will it suit?
Lots of players will like it because it is so well balanced, stroke-players, blockers, and technical batters alike …
The bat looks good in its camouflage colourway but be careful when you put it down on the floor as the bat will blend into the grass! It has a flatter toe than the TC range and it comes with a toe guard.
Technical Specs
It has a concave shape with a flatter bat face, but its key difference is that the distribution of the wood runs from the top of the bat to the bottom.
Performance Review - In the Nets
You think because of the shape of the bat it will be heavy but it is a well-balanced bat and the weight distribution is more even, which makes it pick up light, which surprised Neil. You can hit the ball solidly from all areas of this bat. It is very forgiving and performs well.
What type of player will it suit?
Strikers and shot players are going to love this. When they get their hands through the ball the bat will do the rest. I like the shape of the DC bat and it suits me.
A clean, pure, and elegant look to this one. Grey and white are its main colours and as with all the New Balance bats the sticker set-up is very similar. It comes with a rounded toe and no toe guard.
Technical Specs
The main difference here is that this bat has a spine visible from the top of the bat through to the toe. Which makes for a balanced pick-up.
Performance Review - In the Nets
The New Balance Heritage Cricket Bat sure does pick up light and the weight distribution is very similar to the TC range. The central spine gives the bat a lovely balance, but it means the wood is distributed centrally through the bat making it a great bat if you stay in the middle section of the blade and less forgiving if you hit the ball off-centre.
What type of player will it suit?
Stroke players, technical players, young players, pretty much everyone. This is our go-to bat if you aren’t sure which New Balance cricket bat to go for.
All the stickers in the New Balance range look good and we think the sticker revamp has been a success. The blue is really striking and again the stickers on the New Balance Burn Cricket Bat look good.
Technical Specs
This is the light bat option in the range. The bat itself is 15 mm shorter in blade length which allows the bat maker to use more wood in the blade of the bat and still keep these bats coming in at a lighter weight.
Performance Review - In the Nets
It does pick up lighter than a full-length blade bat. It gives you a lot of flexibility as a batter. You can hit through the ball because it has a lot of wood in the blade, and you can play the deft late-cuts with it because it is a lightweight bat.
What type of player will it suit?
Anyone looking for a lightweight bat that has some weight to it, and I think that is a lot of us!
We have been very fortunate to be able to use the pads and gloves associated with each of the bat families in this bat review. Well, at least Neil did. What about the left-handers I say!!!
Enough of my twittering on, Neil’s thoughts were -
The colourways weren’t too invasive and you can mix and match the pads and gloves in most of the ranges but not with the DC range as it is unique.
The DC cricket pads had less protection to them than the TC range, which were super comfortable with some nice attention to detail (with leather strips on the Velcro strips to stop them from fraying). The Burn pads were similar to the Heritage pads, but they felt lighter than the other three pads.
Neil loved the Burn Blue on the gloves. The Heritage cricket batting glove didn’t have much room in the thumb on the right-hand glove, but it could have just been that pair. The TC gloves had lots of protection and were very comfortable. The DC gloves had lots of blocks to them which made the very manoeuvrable and comfortable.
This is a solid bat range. Whilst it has only a few bats in it we felt it because of the small number of bats in the range it showed off the differences in the bats very well.
Our last thought was, if you wanted to buy a New Balance cricket bat and didn’t know which one to choose you should opt for one from the Heritage range as it is the safe option because it covers all bases.
The other cricket bats are different, and you will need to pick them up to feel which one works best for you.
Thanks to New Balance for giving us the chance to try the kit for this review.
Fingers crossed for some left-handed soft equipment next year! Or am I being greedy?
