#1816

MCC Bans Roundarm — Law 10 Tightened, 1816

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.