#icc rule

5 incidents tagged

The John Player League — England's First Limited-Overs County Competition, 1969

All 17 first-class counties

1969-04-27

The John Player League, sponsored by the cigarette manufacturer and played on Sunday afternoons, began in 1969 as English county cricket's first regular limited-overs competition. Each county played 16 matches of 40 overs per side; Lancashire won the first title. The competition, criticised by purists and loved by the public, transformed the Sunday cricket calendar and demonstrated that spectators would attend short-form cricket in large numbers.

#john-player-league#sunday-league#limited-overs

📋Mild

MCC Abolishes the Amateur–Professional Distinction — November 1962

MCC / English cricket

1962-11-26

In November 1962 the MCC's committee voted to abolish the distinction between amateur gentlemen and professional players in English cricket, effective from the start of the 1963 season. All cricketers in English domestic cricket would henceforth be simply 'cricketers', removing the last formal expression of class-based segregation from the national summer game.

#amateur-status#mcc#professionals

📋Moderate

The Overarm Bowling Debate — Professionals Push the Law's Limits Through the 1850s

MCC vs Professionals

1856-01-01

Through the 1850s, as the leading English professionals pushed their bowling arms steadily higher than the shoulder, the distinction between legal roundarm and illegal overarm became increasingly unenforceable. The MCC observed, debated and repeatedly declined to act, leaving umpires in an impossible position and creating a decade of informal overarm bowling that made the law a dead letter before it was formally repealed in 1864.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#1850s

📋Mild

Lord's Ground Improvements and the MCC's Growing Authority, 1853

Marylebone Cricket Club

1853-04-01

Through the early 1850s the MCC invested in improvements to Lord's — drainage, re-turfing and the construction of new members' facilities — and simultaneously consolidated its authority over the laws of cricket. The MCC's status as the sole custodian of the laws was not formally challenged in the 1850s, but the overarm bowling debate that was building would require its intervention before the decade was out.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#1850s

📋Mild

MCC Adopts a Maximum-Stakes Rule for Major Matches — Committee, May 1807

n/a

1807-05-13

In May 1807 the MCC committee — alarmed by the runaway side-betting that had attached to single-wicket and county matches through the early 1800s — passed a resolution capping the principal stake on any MCC-arranged major match at 500 guineas. The rule did not stop side betting in the gallery, but it cut the headline stakes on the central fixtures sharply and is the first MCC regulation explicitly aimed at reducing betting influence on major cricket.

#regency-cricket#underarm#lord-s-old-ground