In 1816, with John Willes and a small but growing band of Kent and Sussex bowlers persistently raising their arm above the elbow, the MCC revised Law 10 to spell out that bowling must be 'underhand, with the hand below the elbow' and that any horizontal extension of the arm should be called no-ball. The reform was a deliberate effort to suppress roundarm. It failed. Within twelve years the law had to be rewritten in roundarm's favour.
Pitches in the 1810s were getting harder and faster as ground preparation improved at Lord's and the major southern grounds. Underarm bowling, which had once produced varied flight and turn on rough surfaces, was increasingly being hit on these new pitches. Bowlers naturally sought a higher arm to extract bounce.
Beauclerk had returned from a private match in Kent in late 1815 complaining of Willes's action. The MCC committee took up the matter over the winter; the 1816 wording was the result.
The original law of cricket on bowling had been simple: the ball must be bowled (not thrown) underarm. The phrase 'below the elbow' was new in 1816, inserted to give umpires unambiguous authority to no-ball Willes and his imitators. The committee debate in the spring of 1816 was led by Lord Frederick Beauclerk himself, a slow underarm bowler whose own action would have been threatened by a freer law. The revised wording read, in substance: 'The ball must be bowled (not thrown or jerked), and be delivered underhand, with the hand below the elbow. If the arm be extended straight out from the body horizontally, the umpire shall call no-ball.' The law was published in the 1816 edition of the Laws and was enforced through the 1816 and 1817 seasons. Willes was no-balled at Lord's, at Penenden Heath and at Canterbury through these years; Broadbridge of Sussex faced similar treatment. Yet roundarm continued to spread. The newer Sussex bowlers — Lillywhite was just emerging — found the action too productive to abandon, and county cricket in the south-east became a series of standoffs between the law and the practice. By 1822 Willes had walked off in despair; by 1828 the MCC had been forced to retreat and legalise the elbow-height action it had banned in 1816.
Winter 1815-16: MCC committee debates how to suppress roundarm
Beauclerk leads the drafting committee
Spring 1816: New Law 10 published, requiring hand below elbow
1816 season: Willes no-balled repeatedly under the new wording
1817-1822: Roundarm continues to spread despite the law
1828: Law revised in roundarm's favour (elbow height permitted)
Pre-1816
Law specified underarm but ambiguous on arm height
Winter 1815-16
MCC committee debates new wording
Spring 1816
Law 10 revised with explicit elbow rule
1816-1822
Willes and Broadbridge repeatedly no-balled
1828
Law retreats; roundarm legalised at elbow height
“The ball must be bowled (not thrown or jerked), and be delivered underhand, with the hand below the elbow.”
The 1816 law remained nominally in force until 1828. Through those twelve years roundarm bowling continued to gain ground in Sussex and Kent. Beauclerk himself, while still officially opposing the action, lost influence as he aged. The 1827 trial matches between Sussex and England demonstrated that roundarm was now indispensable to competitive cricket, and the law was rewritten the following year.
A defensive reform that failed within a generation. The 1816 law marks the high-water mark of underarm cricket and the moment at which the rearguard action against modern bowling was clearly losing.
The 1816 law is the case-study example of legal conservatism in cricket: a reform aimed at suppressing a practice that turned out to be inevitable. The next two centuries of cricket law-making — from the 1864 overarm legalisation to the 2000s elbow-flex tolerance — would be conducted with the lesson of 1816 in mind: cricket's law must follow practice, not try to dictate it.
Pakistan, England
1987-12-09
Days before the Mike Gatting-Shakoor Rana finger-pointing row, Chris Broad refused to leave the crease for over a minute after being given out caught behind, an incident that helped poison the 1987 Faisalabad Test.
England vs South Africa
1960-06-25
On 25 June 1960, the 21-year-old South African Geoff Griffin took the first Test hat-trick ever recorded at Lord's — and was no-balled eleven times for throwing in the same match. After the Test ended early on the fourth day, the umpires no-balled him repeatedly in the exhibition match staged to fill the unused time, forcing him to complete the over underarm. He never played another Test.
Australia vs South Africa
1963-12-06
On 6 December 1963 at the Gabba, in his first over of the first Test against South Africa, Australian left-arm fast bowler Ian Meckiff was no-balled four times by umpire Col Egar — for throwing. Captain Richie Benaud removed him after the over and never bowled him again. Meckiff retired from all cricket at the end of the match. He was 28.