Some careful players would hit over the ball even after they have scored one hundred runs, and we have never seen Shrewsbury, for instance, cut in any other way. In the figure the ball must be presumed to lie rather low, for it is certain that he is following his invariable custom of getting over the ball. In any case we should never recommend the clean cut to any but the best players, and that only on a perfect wicket and when they are well set. If you are in the position to cut and the ball should bump, it is wise to leave it alone, for the danger of being caught at third man is very great. We have seen lusty hitters get right under a bumping off ball and send it high over third man’s head, but it is a perilous stroke, and is not correct cricket. If the ball, on the other hand, keeps a bit low after the pitch, it is a most effective stroke to come heavily down on it; if the force is put on the ball at the right moment it will go very hard, and may be called a ‘chop.’ Messrs. K. J. Key and O’Brien, who are strong players from every point of view, excel at this stroke, and they hit the ground at the same time as the ball with a great power of wrist. It is useless for anybody to hope to cut well unless he has both a strong wrist and the power of timing. The question now arises, What is the player with a weak wrist to do with a ball that a strong-wristed man cuts? Some would say that if he cannot cut in the orthodox vigorous way he ought at any rate to go as near to it as he can, and if he cannot make a clean cut for four, at least he should content himself with two. We think, however, there is for such players a more excellent way. In the cut we have been describing the right foot is shifted across: suppose the player now moves his left foot, not across, but simply straight forward to a ball that is in every way suitable to cut; let him then wait till the ball has gone just past his body, and then hit it with the full force of his arms and shoulders and with as much wrist as he has got. The ball will naturally go in the same direction as the orthodox cut, and quite as hard. The player must stand upright, and must especially be careful not to hit the ball before it has passed his body. If he does this off a fast long hop, he will bring off a vulgar sort of stroke, which cannot go so hard as the ball hit later, because there is greater resistance to the bat; in the correct way the bat hits the ball partly behind it and, as it were, helps it on in its natural course, whereas at the incorrect moment the ball has to be thumped in order to send it in an exactly opposite direction from that in which it is going before meeting the bat.