Greatest Cricket Moments

Lillywhite & Broadbridge Engaged as MCC Bowlers — 1839

1839-05-15MCCMCC engages William Lillywhite and James Broadbridge as practice bowlers, 18391 min readSeverity: Mild

Summary

In 1839 the MCC formally engaged William Lillywhite and James Broadbridge as paid practice bowlers at Lord's — bringing the Sussex roundarm pair, by now in their forties, onto the MCC ground staff. The arrangement marked the moment at which the world's leading club institutionalised roundarm bowling at its own headquarters, a decade after the law had been changed.

What Happened

Lillywhite was forty-seven and Broadbridge slightly older when MCC engaged them in 1839. Both had been Sussex regulars for two decades. The wage was £1 a week in season plus match fees; both also continued to play for Sussex and in major matches. Their presence at Lord's made it impossible for the lingering critics of roundarm to argue that the style was somehow not 'proper' MCC cricket. The engagement is conventionally treated as the final domestic acceptance of roundarm.

Timeline

1828

Roundarm legalised to elbow height

1835

Roundarm legalised to shoulder height

1839

Lillywhite & Broadbridge engaged as MCC practice bowlers

1864

Overarm bowling fully legalised

⚖️ The Verdict

The formal acceptance of roundarm bowling at the heart of the establishment game.

Legacy & Impact

The Lord's engagement of Lillywhite and Broadbridge is the moment historians point to as the practical end of the underarm-roundarm controversy.

Tags

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#william-lillywhite#james-broadbridge#mcc#lords#1839#iconic-moment

Related Incidents

⭐Mild

Middlesex County Cricket Club Founded — Cricket Comes Home to Lord's, 1864

Middlesex cricket establishment

1864-02-02

Middlesex County Cricket Club was founded on 2 February 1864 at a meeting in London, the same year in which the MCC legalised overarm bowling and John Wisden published his first Almanack. It was one of several county clubs formally constituted in the busy years of 1863–65 as English cricket reorganised itself around a county structure that would eventually evolve into a formal championship.

#overarm-era#early-county-cricket#1860s
⭐Mild

Lancashire County Cricket Club Founded — Manchester's Game Gets Organised, 1864

Lancashire cricket establishment

1864-01-12

Lancashire County Cricket Club was formally constituted at a meeting in Manchester on 12 January 1864, giving England's most cricket-passionate industrial county a formal organisational structure to match the grassroots enthusiasm that had been filling grounds at Old Trafford and elsewhere for decades. Lancashire, alongside Yorkshire, represented the great northern cricket public that William Clarke's All-England Eleven had first mobilised commercially in the 1840s.

#overarm-era#early-county-cricket#1860s
⭐Mild

V.E. Walker Takes All Ten — Every Wicket at Lord's, Middlesex v Lancashire, 1865

Middlesex vs Lancashire

1865-07-26

Vyell Edward Walker of Middlesex took all ten wickets in a Lancashire innings at Lord's on 26 July 1865 — one of the earliest documented instances of a bowler taking all ten in a first-class match. Walker, a medium-pace round-arm bowler who also captained Middlesex, achieved the feat without assistance from any other bowler, delivering one of the most complete individual bowling performances of the Victorian era.

#overarm-era#early-county-cricket#1860s