#edgar willsher

3 incidents tagged

Kent's 1860s Decline — From Champion County to Sixteen-A-Side, 1860-1869

Kent vs other counties

1865-09-01

Kent, the most successful county of the 1830s and 1840s under Fuller Pilch's batting, fell into financial and competitive decline through the 1860s. With Pilch retired, Kent was sometimes forced to field elevens of up to sixteen by combining with local club cricketers from Whitstable, Faversham and Ashford. The 1862 Willsher walk-off was Kent's most consequential moment of the decade — but its leading bowler's career and the club's increasing reliance on him underline how thin the county's resources had become.

#kent#1860s#decline

⭐Serious

MCC Legalises Overarm Bowling — Law 10 Rewritten, June 1864

n/a

1864-06-10

On 10 June 1864 the Marylebone Cricket Club rewrote Law 10 to permit a bowler to deliver the ball with his arm at any height, provided the action was not a throw. The change ended a half-century of legislative cat-and-mouse over how high a bowler could carry his hand and turned overarm — already the dominant style in practice — into the only style cricket would know.

#mcc#law-change#overarm-bowling

🏏Serious

Edgar Willsher No-Balled Six Times — The Walk-Off That Legalised Overarm, 1862

England XI vs Surrey

1862-08-26

Bowling for an England XI against Surrey at the Oval on 26 August 1862, the Kent left-armer Edgar Willsher was no-balled six times in a row by umpire John Lillywhite for raising his hand above the shoulder. Willsher and the eight other professionals in the team marched off the field in protest, leaving the two amateurs stranded. Lillywhite quietly stood down the next day, and within two years the MCC had legalised overarm bowling.

#edgar-willsher#john-lillywhite#overarm-bowling