Players Grade Cricket Bats

A question we get asked a lot is what Players Grade actually is, and how it differs from the other grades of willow. Willow grading causes a lot of confusion, largely because people assume it is all about looks. In reality, grading is about a combination of weight, density, and appearance.

Players Grade are our top-tier clefts. These are the lightest and most premium pieces of willow available across all grades. Players Grade willow allows us to make bats that are guaranteed to be big and guaranteed to perform.

Because the clefts are naturally low density, we can retain far more wood for the same finished weight. That means more volume, bigger profiles, and fuller spines, without compromising pickup or scale weight in the way you would have to when trying to achieve the same shape from a more normal cleft.

A key point many people miss is that a Players Grade bat and a regular grade bat at the same weight will not be the same size. The Players Grade bat will always have more wood in it, because the willow itself is lighter.

We pick these clefts out when we process our willow and put them aside specifically for custom Players Grade orders and batches of Players Grade stock bats. That extra volume is often where the performance comes from. These low density clefts also tend to press extremely well, and are actually quite difficult to turn into bats that do not perform exceptionally well.

As long as a cleft does not have too many pin knots, dead knots, butterfly staining, or false growths in the hitting area, a low density piece of willow can almost always be turned into something special as a finished bat.

You will often see smaller makers, and Google, stating that a Players Grade bat must have ten or more perfectly clean grains, be blemish free, and all white willow. This is simply not the case. If you speak to any major brand that works with professional players who require big, light bats, the majority of these Players Grade bats actually come from lower visual grades of willow, often with fewer grains.

There is a general trend with willow where more grains usually equates to more weight, which is why genuinely low density clefts with very high grain counts are particularly rare. This is one of the reasons some brands charge up to £1000 for Players Grade bats.

The truth is you do not need fifteen grains behind the ball to achieve elite performance. The same profile, pickup, and ping can be achieved with five grains and some heartwood, a cleft that may originally have been purchased within Grade 3 criteria, if the density and pressing are right.

That is not to say that you will not find something within the numbered grades that performs as well as a Players Grade bat in terms of ping. However, it will not have the same volume of wood, and when finished at a lighter weight there can be a loss of power and overall umph compared to a true Players Grade.

If you are the sort of player who wants a big bat at a lighter weight, with a full profile and no compromises, this is where Players Grade really earns its place. It is not about chasing grain counts or perfect cosmetics, it is about selecting the lightest clefts available and using that extra volume where it actually matters. 

All of this said, if you want a Players Grade bat with a lot of grain, clean grain as well, we do stock these in our handmade workshop stock section and can also make them to order. We can absolutely do them. What we want to be clear about is that large grain counts are not compulsory to get Players Grade performance, and you are not being short-changed if your Players Grade bat comes from a cleft that would traditionally sit within a lower visual grade. The performance comes from the density, the volume, and the way the bat is made, not from chasing cosmetics for the sake of it.