#roundarm

16 incidents tagged

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position and creating a decade of informal overarm bowling that made the law a dead letter before it was formally repealed in 1864.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

John 'Foghorn' Jackson — The Fastest Bowler in England Through the 1850s

Nottinghamshire and All-England Eleven

1855-07-01

John 'Foghorn' Jackson of Bungay was through the 1850s and early 1860s the fastest roundarm bowler in England, a right-arm quick of exceptional pace and hostility. Playing principally for Nottinghamshire and the All-England Eleven, he took 796 first-class wickets at 10.52, a remarkable average for the era, and was feared by even the best professional batsmen for the speed he could generate on the rough, unprepared pitches of the period.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#1850s

⭐Mild

Death of William Lillywhite 'The Nonpareil' — August 1854

Sussex and All-England

1854-08-21

William Lillywhite, nicknamed 'The Nonpareil' and 'Old Lilly', the Sussex professional roundarm bowler who had been instrumental in the 1820s campaign to legalise roundarm bowling and had dominated English bowling through the late 1820s and 1830s, died at Hove on 21 August 1854, aged 63. His death closed the first chapter of the roundarm era he had helped create.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#1850s

🥊Mild

William Martingell — Surrey's Roundarm Seamer Joins the UAEE Breakaway, 1852

Surrey, United All-England Eleven

1852-08-15

William Martingell of Nutfield, Surrey, was one of the leading roundarm bowlers in England through the late 1840s and 1850s. When Wisden and Dean broke from Clarke's All-England Eleven in 1852, Martingell was among the first professionals to join the new United All-England Eleven, citing Clarke's autocratic management and inadequate pay — a decision that cost him several AEE fixtures but confirmed the UAEE's credibility.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#1850s

🔥Moderate

The Overarm Debate Begins — Bowlers Push the Law's Limits, 1840s

English professional bowlers and MCC

1845-06-01

Through the 1840s a growing number of English professional bowlers were experimenting with deliveries that raised the bowling arm above the established roundarm height, daring umpires to no-ball them. The debate that would culminate in Edgar Willsher's famous walk-off in 1862 and MCC's legalisation of overarm in 1864 had its roots in the 1840s, when the commercial success of the All-England Eleven touring matches put a premium on pace and hostility that roundarm could not always provide.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#1840s

⭐Mild

William Hillyer — Kent's Fastest and Most Feared Roundarmer, 1840s

Kent and All-England elevens

1844-07-01

William Hillyer of Leybourne was Kent's leading fast roundarm bowler through the 1840s and one of the most effective in England, taking over 1,000 first-class wickets in a career that ran from 1835 to 1853. His high-arm roundarm delivery and ferocious pace on hard pitches placed him alongside Alfred Mynn as the most dangerous member of the Kent attack, and his appearances for the All-England Eleven made him known across the country.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#1840s

⭐Mild

The Last Underarm Bowlers — Lillywhite's Legacy and the End of the Old Style, 1840s

English professional bowlers generally

1844-07-01

By the 1840s, underarm bowling — the style that had dominated cricket for its first century — had all but vanished from first-class cricket, replaced by the roundarm action legalised in 1835. A handful of veteran players, most notably William Lillywhite the Nonpareil, continued to bowl underarm with great effect, but their era was visibly passing. The 1840s were the decade in which the game completed its transition from one bowling epoch to another.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#1840s

⭐Mild

William Martingell — Surrey's Match-Winning Roundarmer, 1840s

Surrey and All-England elevens

1843-07-01

William Martingell of Nutfield was Surrey's leading roundarm bowler through the 1840s and early 1850s, combining pace with exceptional accuracy to take 762 first-class wickets at 10.38 — an average that ranked among the best in the game. An early member of Clarke's All-England Eleven, Martingell toured England's industrial north every summer and was instrumental in the AEE's competitive success against local twenties-and-twos.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#1840s

⭐Mild

William Lillywhite at Forty-Seven — Roundarm Mastery, 1839

Sussex, Players, South

1839-08-12

By 1839 William Lillywhite was 47 years old — an age at which most cricketers of any era have long since retired — and was still indisputably the leading bowler in England. The 1839 season saw him take wickets in every major fixture: Players vs Gentlemen at Lord's, North vs South, and the Sussex county matches. His longevity at the top of the bowling lists is one of the remarkable features of the late 1830s.

#william-lillywhite#the-nonpareil#1839

⭐Mild

Sussex — The Roundarm County of the 1830s

Sussex

1837-06-15

Through the 1830s Sussex was, with Kent, one of the two leading counties in England. The county had been the cradle of roundarm bowling — Lillywhite and Jem Broadbridge had been the bowlers who forced the law change of 1828 — and through the 1830s the Sussex eleven, built around Lillywhite's bowling and Tom Box behind the stumps, was a regular winner against all comers.

#sussex#william-lillywhite#jem-broadbridge

⭐Mild

James Broadbridge — The Other Half of Sussex's Roundarm Pair, 1830s

Sussex; Players

1835-08-01

James Broadbridge of Duncton was the second half — alongside William Lillywhite — of the Sussex roundarm bowling partnership that dominated the late 1820s and 1830s. Where Lillywhite was the relentless metronome, Broadbridge bowled with sharper turn and a higher arm, often pushing the limits of the shoulder-height rule. Through the 1830s the two formed the most-feared opening attack in England.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#james-broadbridge

⭐Serious

MCC Laws Revision — Roundarm Permitted to Shoulder Height, 1835

n/a

1835-05-19

On 19 May 1835 the Marylebone Cricket Club rewrote Law 10 a second time, raising the permitted height of the bowler's hand from the elbow (the 1828 limit) to the shoulder. The change ratified what most leading bowlers — Lillywhite, Broadbridge, the Lillywhite imitators in Kent and Surrey — had already been doing in practice and was the second of three law changes (1828, 1835, 1864) by which underarm cricket gave way to overarm.

#mcc#law-change#1835

⭐Mild

William Lillywhite 'The Nonpareil' — Sussex's Roundarm Master Through the 1830s

Sussex, MCC, England

1834-07-01

Through the 1830s William Lillywhite of Sussex — universally known as 'the Nonpareil' for his accuracy — was the most successful bowler in England. He had been one of the two Sussex bowlers (with Jem Broadbridge) who forced the legalisation of roundarm in 1828; through the 1830s he refined the new style into an instrument of unprecedented control, taking hundreds of wickets a season at a length other bowlers could not match.

#william-lillywhite#the-nonpareil#sussex

⭐Mild

Alfred Mynn 'The Lion of Kent' — The Giant of 1830s Cricket

Kent, Players of England

1834-08-01

Alfred Mynn of Goudhurst in Kent — six feet one inch tall, eighteen to twenty stone in his prime, and capable of bowling fast roundarm at speeds contemporaries described as terrifying — emerged through the 1830s as cricket's first true giant. Nicknamed 'the Lion of Kent', he was the central fast bowler of his era, the pre-eminent single-wicket cricketer, and the figure around whom the great Kent eleven of the late 1830s and 1840s was built.

#alfred-mynn#lion-of-kent#kent

⭐Mild

Tom Walker 'Old Everlasting' — The Last Hambledon Hand in the 1800s

Hampshire / Surrey / occasional XIs

1808-07-01

Tom Walker, born at Hambledon in 1762 and nicknamed 'Old Everlasting' for the unhurried, immovable defensive batting that once let him face 170 balls from David Harris for one run, was the last Hambledon man still appearing in important cricket through the early 1800s. His attempted 'higher arm' bowling had been ruled foul play by the Hambledon Club committee in 1788 — a forgotten experiment that John Willes would revive in 1807 and that would eventually become roundarm.

#tom-walker#old-everlasting#hambledon

⭐Moderate

John Willes Bowls Roundarm at Penenden Heath — Kent v England, July 1807

Kent XXIII vs All-England XIII

1807-07-29

In July 1807 the Kent farmer John Willes bowled what one newspaper called 'straight arm bowling' for a Kent XXIII against an All-England XIII at Penenden Heath, near Maidstone, in a match for £1,000 a side. It was the first attempt since Tom Walker's experiments in the 1780s to revive the higher-arm action that would become roundarm. The newspaper noted Willes's deliveries were 'an obstacle against getting runs'. The MCC would not formally legalise roundarm bowling for another 21 years.

#john-willes#roundarm#kent