Umpire Darrell Hair no-balled Muttiah Muralitharan seven times for a suspect bowling action during the Boxing Day Test at the MCG, sparking a massive controversy.
On Boxing Day 1995 at the MCG, umpire Darrell Hair called Muralitharan for throwing seven times from the bowler's end. It was the first time a bowler had been called for chucking in a Test match since 1963.
Sri Lanka were outraged. They argued that Muralitharan's unusual action — caused by a congenital condition that prevented him from fully straightening his arm — gave the optical illusion of throwing. Bio-mechanical tests later confirmed that his arm did not straighten beyond the 15-degree tolerance that the ICC would eventually adopt.
The incident was deeply controversial. Hair was accused of overstepping his authority and of having a bias against subcontinental players. Sri Lanka threatened to abandon the tour. The ICC subsequently introduced bio-mechanical testing for bowling actions rather than relying on umpires' visual judgments.
Muralitharan went on to become the highest wicket-taker in Test history with 800 wickets, vindicating those who defended his action. Hair, meanwhile, became a polarizing figure and was later involved in the 2006 Oval forfeiture controversy with Pakistan.
Muralitharan's action was later cleared by bio-mechanical testing. Hair's decision is now seen as overly aggressive. The ICC introduced scientific testing for suspect actions.
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1864-06-01
The legalisation of overarm bowling in 1864 created an immediate grey zone: how high could the arm go, and at what point did a fast delivery become an illegal throw? Through the 1860s English cricket struggled with this question as a succession of fast bowlers developed actions that umpires suspected but rarely no-balled, creating a climate of suspicion that would recur in every generation of cricket thereafter.