Choose the correct words from the brackets:
(curving, curve, contact, roughly, underarm, middle)
till the ……….. of the eighteenth century. bats were ………… the same shape as hockey sticks, ……… outwards at the bottom. There was a simple reason for this: the ball was bowled …………. , along the ground and the ……. at the end of the bat gave the batsman the best chance of making ………… .