Cricket continues to wrestle with contentious issue of ‘throwing’

There are certain elements of cricket that are considered to be unsavory or objectionable. One of them is throwing the ball instead of bowling it. A recent example occurred in South Africa, but it is by no means a new phenomenon.

Until the early 19th century, underarm bowling was the norm. Apparently, women found it difficult to navigate their long skirts using this form of delivery, with some resorting to roundarm delivery. The brother of one lady became something of a martyr in deploying the method in a match at Lord’s in 1816. This led to a new ruling, which stated that “the ball must be delivered underhand, not thrown or jerked, with the hand below the elbow at the time of delivering the ball.”

Despite the ruling, attempts to contravene it were frequent and contentious. Eventually, in 1835, roundarm bowling was legalized, deliveries allowed at shoulder height. The next battle centered on the legality of delivering the ball with the hand raised above the shoulder. In 1864, Law 10 was amended to allow this, provided the arm was straight and the ball was not thrown. Rotation or flexing of the wrist in the delivery swing was allowed.

In essence, the Law has remained the same for well over 100 years. Interpretation of whether the Law was being broken rested on the visual interpretation of an action by the umpire standing square to the striker.

No doubt, off-field discussions about the legality of an individual bowling action would have taken place prior to the call of no-ball. Several careers were ended by such calls between 1880 and 1950, after which an outbreak of illegal bowling occurred. Tougher enforcement of the Law and individual bans curbed the trend. At the time, Neville Cardus, one of cricket’s great