_The Tice._ Safest to block: apt to be missed, because a dropping ball; hard to get away, because on the ground. Drop the bat smartly on the ground, and it will make a run, but do not try too much of a hit. The Tice is almost a full pitch; the way to hit it, says Caldecourt, is to go in and make it a full pitch: I cannot advise this for beginners. Going in even to a Tice puts you out of form for the next ball, and creates a dangerous habit. _Ground balls_, and all balls that touch the ground more than once between wickets, I have already hinted, are reckoned very easy, but they are always liable to prove very dangerous. Sometimes you have three hops, and the last like a good length ball: at each hop the ball may twist On or Off with the inequalities of the ground; also, if bowled with the least bias, there is much scope for that bias to produce effect. All these peculiarities account for a fact, strange but true, that the best batsmen are often out with the worst bowling. Bad bowling requires a game of its own, and a game of the greatest care, where too commonly we find the least; because “only underhand bowling,”--and “not by any means good lengths;” it requires, especially, playing at the ball itself, even to the last inch, and not by calculation of the pitch or rise. Let me further remark that hitting, to be either free, quick, or clean, must be done by the arms and wrists, and not by the body; though the weight of the body appears to be thrown in by putting down the left leg; though, in reality, the leg comes down after the hit to restore the balance.