Start date 1827 | ||
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The roundarm controversy came to a head before the 1827 English cricket season and MCC agreed to the staging of three trial matches between Sussex and All-England. Roundarm's supporters made the grandiose claim that their campaign was a march of intellect. What the bowlers were really after was of course to claim an advantage over the batsmen.
Contents
No firm conclusions were drawn in the immediate aftermath of the trials and it was many years before roundarm was formally legalised. But, in practice, roundarm was adopted in 1827 as its practitioners, especially William Lillywhite and Jem Broadbridge of Sussex, continued to use it with little, if any, opposition from the umpires.
Underarm bowling did not cease, even if it had been superseded. In fact, underarm survived roundarm. Underarm as a tactical alternative to overarm continued into the twentieth century with George Simpson-Hayward being the last major exponent.
On 4 June, Cambridge University versus Oxford University at Lord's was the first University Match. It became an annual fixture in 1838.
On 22 August, George Rawlins playing for Sheffield against Nottingham became the first batsman to be out hit the ball twice in a first-class game. This has since occurred only six more times in English first-class cricket, and not since 1906.
First-class matches
1827 match list
Leading batsmen
Yorkshire's Tom Marsden was the leading runscorer with 308 runs @ 25.66; ahead of Kent's James Saunders who had 299 @ 24.91 including the season’s only first-class century.
Leading bowlers
William Ashby of Kent was the leading wicket-taker with 29; ahead of Sussex’s Jem Broadbridge with 27.