Crossword Genius

Fragile material hit with middle of bat (5)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

china

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'fragile' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'hit with middle of bat' is the wordplay.
'hit' becomes 'chia' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'with' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'middle of' says to take the centre.
'bat' becomes 'flying fox' (flying fox is a kind of bat).
The centre of 'flyingfox' is 'n'.
'chia' enclosing 'n' is 'CHINA'.

'material' acts as a link.
This may not be correct. It may be part of another bit of the clue.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for china that I've seen before include "Beijing's country" , "Variety of rose" , "Ceramics; friend" , "Asian country" , "Mate (Cockney rhyming slang)" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
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