This bat has been touted as the best looking Kookaburra bat. Now that is a huge accolade for the Kookaburra Patriot as it is coming out of a season where Kookaburra raised the bar plenty with a superb range of bats, including the Kahuna, Xenon, Instinct and other beauties. With a gold finishing on the stickers the Kookaburra Patriot looks like cricket bat royalty.
Right from the top it looks great. The handle is a semi-oval cane handle. The semi-oval on the Kookaburra Patriot as with other cricket bats has become the shape that gives batsmen optimum control and comfort.
The shape of the Kookaburra Patriot is very similar to Cricket Store Online's bat of the year, the Kookaburra Kahuna. There are some slight differences though. The spine on the bat is higher but does not reach the toe. What that does is, it gives the bat a fuller profile. This means that even if you don't absolutely middle the ball, you will still get huge amounts of power on the shot.
It has a flat face profile and really big edges. There is also no scalloping of the edges. Again, this contributes to fantastic amounts of power through the shot even if you do not completely middle the ball. The balance of the bat is also superb with a lightweight pick-up to a bat that has a mid to high center. This bat will perform great on slightly bouncier pitches or for batsmen who have a ferocious horizontal-bat shot range.
All in all, I would say that this is the long lost brother of the Kookaburra Kahuna, it will give batsman masses of power even on some of the more streaky shots. Kookaburra is certainly upping the ante with their fantastic bats, exciting to see what other brands come up with too.