Controversies in 1816

4 incidents documented

John Willes Pioneers Roundarm — The Kent Trial Games of the 1810s

Kent and various private XIs

1816-07-15

Through the 1810s the Kent gentleman cricketer John Willes of Tonford persisted with a delivery action that broke the laws of cricket: the arm raised level with the elbow, often higher, in defiance of the underarm law. According to Arthur Haygarth, Willes had picked up the action from his sister Christiana, who bowled to him in their garden when he was unwell. Through trial games for Kent and private elevens he forced the issue match by match, was no-balled repeatedly, and laid the foundation for the eventual legalisation of roundarm in 1828 and overarm in 1864.

#john-willes#christiana-willes#roundarm-bowling

🏏Serious

MCC Bans Roundarm — Law 10 Tightened, 1816

n/a

1816-05-01

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.

#mcc#law-10#roundarm-bowling

⭐Mild

E.H. Budd — The Strongest Hitter at Lord's, 1810s

MCC, All-England, various private elevens

1816-06-01

Through the 1810s Edward Hayward Budd was the second-most-prominent gentleman amateur in English cricket after Lord Frederick Beauclerk and the strongest hitter at Lord's. A right-handed batsman and occasional medium-pace lob bowler, Budd had first played at Lord's in about 1804 and remained a fixture of MCC cricket until 1831. His career was disrupted by the Napoleonic War like everyone else's, but he returned to senior cricket in 1815 and through the rest of the decade was the most reliable counterweight to Beauclerk's tactical authority.

#eh-budd#edward-hayward-budd#mcc

😂Mild

Squire Osbaldeston's Fast Underarm — Wicketkeepers Stuff Their Shirts With Straw, 1810s

MCC and various private elevens

1816-07-01

Through the 1810s the Yorkshire squire George Osbaldeston was bowling underarm so fast that wicketkeepers reportedly stuffed straw down their shirts as makeshift body padding before facing him. There were no protective gloves, no helmets, no chest guards in 1815 cricket; the underarm ball, skidding low off Lord's pitches at speeds estimated to be the equivalent of a modern medium-pacer, could break ribs and crack collarbones. Osbaldeston's bowling produced more bruised wicketkeepers than any other in his era and gave Regency cricket one of its most enduring slapstick images.

#george-osbaldeston#fast-underarm#wicketkeeper