Performed cricket stroke (cut) into vacant ground (7)
I believe the answer is:
glanced
'performed cricket stroke' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are past participle verbs, I don't understand how they can define each other.
'cut into vacant ground' is the wordplay.
'cut' becomes 'lance' (I've seen this before).
'into' indicates putting letters inside.
'vacant' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters) (a vacant or emptied out form of the word).
'ground' with its middle taken out is 'gd'.
'lance' placed inside 'gd' is 'GLANCED'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for glanced that I've seen before include "Took a quick look" , "Peeked" , "Glimpsed" , "Looked quickly" , "Looked briefly or bounced off" .)