Charlie Griffith's Throwing Controversy — A Career Under Suspicion, 1963–1966

The throwing controversy of the late 1950s and early 1960s — involving Meckiff, Griffin, Slater and several others — had sensitised cricket to the issue. Griffith came at the end of a series of cases that had already produced one career-ending no-balling (Griffin at Lord's, 1960).

Griffith made his Test debut in 1960 and was selected alongside Wes Hall as the most feared pace pair in cricket. By 1963 the first accusations had been made privately; by 1965 they were public. The specific delivery in question was Griffith's bouncer, which observers claimed was propelled with a snap of the elbow — the definition of a throw under cricket law — rather than a legal bowling action. Don Bradman, watching the 1960-61 West Indies v England Tests, told journalists that Griffith threw; umpires in England on the 1963 and 1966 tours declined to no-ball him but several admitted privately they had doubts. The ICC had agreed to act on throwing in the aftermath of the Meckiff case (1963) but its processes were slow and its enforcement weak. Griffith's action was filmed and analysed in slow motion by several organisations; the results were inconclusive by the standards of the day, though subsequent biomechanical analysis has confirmed that his elbow extension exceeded the legal limit on several deliveries. He took 94 wickets at 28.54 in 28 Tests — a legitimate and significant record — but the controversy defined his career in the public mind. He retired in 1969.

“I am satisfied that Griffith throws certain deliveries. I say so without fear of contradiction.”