Page:Cricket, by WG Grace.djvu/241

 shoulders, which can only be acquired by constant practice.

It may be said that keeping up one's wicket is all very well, but what about hitting and the making of runs? Well, let me tell you that if you can keep up your wicket and play the ball hard away from you, runs will come. There is a variety of hits that ought to be touched upon, such as the cut, the leg-hit, the drive, &c.; but they almost demand a treatise to themselves.

Of the cut, the most charming of all strokes, because it seems to be made with very little effort, I may say that it depends entirely on the perfect timing of the ball. The right foot should be moved to the front of the off stump, and the stroke should be made with the wrist when the ball is about a foot in front of the wicket. Half the secret of good cutting consists in hitting slightly over the ball, which will cause it to touch the ground at a short distance from the wicket without affecting its speed. The batsman should not be satisfied that it is a genuine cut unless the ball travels more in the direction of longslip than point; of course, I am speaking of a fast good-length ball, a little outside the off stump. A longhop should be hit hard between point and mid-off with a horizontal bat, and the batsman should advance the left leg in front of the wicket in doing it; or if the ball is not very wide, he should draw back the right foot: that is one of Mr. W. W. Read's best strokes.

There is very little leg-hitting now-a-days, owing to the wonderful accuracy of the bowling. The bowler, as a rule, has eight men on the off side of the wicket, and very seldom bowls to leg. Occasionally you may get a half-volley on the pads, or slightly inside of them; but that should be driven between short-leg and mid-on, instead of pulled to leg. When you get a good-length ball, or one a little over-pitched, just outside of the pads, the proper way to treat it is to