5._ represents a cut at a ball nearer the wicket, the right foot being drawn back to gain space. So much for the abuse of Cutting. If the ball does not rise, there can be no Cut, however loose the bowling; though, with the other Off-hits, two or three might be scored. The most winning game is that which plays the greatest number of balls--an art in which no man can surpass Baldwinson of Yorkshire. Still a first-rate player should have a command of every hit: a bowler may be pitching uniformly short, and the balls may be rising regularly: in this case, every one would like to see a good Cutter at the wicket. To learn the Cut, suspend a ball from a string and a beam, oscillating backwards and forwards--place yourself as at a wicket, and experimentalise. You will find:-- 1. You have no power in Cutting, unless you Cut late--“off the bails:” then only can you use the point of your bat. [Illustration: _Fig. 5._] 2. You have no power, unless you turn on the basis of your feet, and front the ball, your back being almost turned upon the bowler, at the moment of cutting. 3. Your muscles have very little power in Cutting quite horizontally, but very great power in Cutting down on the ball. This agrees with the practice of the best players. Mr. Bradshaw follows the ball and cuts very late, cutting down. He drops his bat, apparently, on the top of the ball. Lord Frederick used to describe the old-fashioned Cutting as done in the same way. Mr. Bradshaw never Cuts but by sight; and since, when the eye catches the rise of a good length ball, not a moment must be lost, his bat is thrown back just a little--an inch or two higher than the bails (he stoops a little for the purpose)--and dropped on the ball in an instant, by play of the wrist alone. Thus does he obtain his peculiar power of Cutting even fair-length balls by sight. Harry Walker, Robinson, and Saunders were the three great Cutters; and they all Cut very late. But the underhand bowling suited cutting (proper) better than round-armed; for all Off-hitting is not cutting. Mr. Felix gives wonderful speed to the ball, effected by cutting down, adding the weight of a descending bat to the free and full power of the shoulder: he would hardly have time for such exertion if he hit with the precision of Mr. Bradshaw, and not hitting till he saw the ball. Lord Frederick found fault with Mr. Felix’s picture of “the Cut,” saying it implied force from the whirl of the bat; whereas a cut should proceed from wrists alone, descending with bat in hand,--precisely Mr. Bradshaw’s hit. “Excuse me, my Lord,” said Mr. Felix, “that’s not a Cut, but only a _pat_.” The said _pat_, or wrist play, I believe to be the only kind of cutting by sight, for good-length balls.