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position and creating a decade of informal overarm bowling that made the law a dead letter before it was formally repealed in 1864.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