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.
Can a man throw his body into a blow (at cricket)? About as much as he can hold up a horse with a bridle while sitting on the same
