Ian Meckiff - Career Peak and Start of Throwing Controversy

Career Peak and Start of Throwing Controversy

The Victorian paceman's international career peaked in 1958–59 during the English tour of Australia. He started the season with a match for Victoria against the tourists, taking 4/69 and 1/16 in a losing effort. His wickets included English Test batsmen Peter Richardson (twice), Arthur Milton and Raman Subba Row.

The Test team was now under the leadership of Benaud—Craig had been forced to withdraw from cricket due to hepatitis; Meckiff retained his place in the side. Prior to the Tests, English all-rounder Trevor Bailey privately described Meckiff as "the worst bowler ever to represent Australia", and felt he posed little threat to the visitors. However this proved to be questionable. The Benaud era started well for Australia and Meckiff, with a comfortable eight-wicket victory in the First Test in Brisbane. The paceman took 3/33 and 2/30, removing Milton, Colin Cowdrey and captain Peter May early on the first day to help Australia take the initiative after the tourists had batted first. The match also marked the start of behind-the-scenes rumblings about the bowler's action.

Meckiff's career peaked at the Second Test, which began on New Year's Eve, 1958 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It was his first international fixture in front of his home crowd, and also marked the start of his career-long public problem with accusations of throwing. The match was dominated by the Victorian and his left-arm pace partner Davidson; the pair took 18 of the 20 English wickets to fall. England's first innings was headlined by Davidson's 6/64; Meckiff took 3/69, including the wicket of England captain May for 113 with a swinging ball, which breached the batsman's defence and crashed into the stumps. This ended a century partnership with Cowdrey, and triggered a collapse that saw England be dismissed for 259, the last six English wickets falling for 49 runs. Meckiff rated the ball as the best of his career. He made a duck as the hosts replied with 308 to take a 49-run lead. It was in England's second innings that Australia's left-arm pacemen were at their most potent; apart from one over from Benaud the pair bowled unchanged to dismiss England for 87 in the 32nd over, Meckiff taking 6/38. Backed a by a vocal home crowd, the Victorian dismissed opener Richardson for three, before removing Bailey, Tom Graveney and Cowdrey in quick succession. He followed this by removing the English skipper for a second time to leave England at 7/71. This set up a comfortable Australian victory as they reached their target of 39 with the loss of two wickets. The Australian pace duo were aided by a series of difficult, diving catches. The pair combined forces when Davidson caught May, and then Graveney, in the leg trap behind square from the bowling of his fellow left-armer, who called the reflex catches "absolutely unbelievable". Meckiff described the hometown atmosphere as "electrifying", and attributed his performance to the crowd support.

The match ended on the eve of Meckiff's 24th birthday, but Australian celebrations were marred by English journalists, who levelled accusations of throwing against him and some of his colleagues. The evening edition of the Melbourne Herald carried a column by former English spinner Johnny Wardle, accusing Meckiff of "throwing England out". Wardle's piece was written confrontationally, as a series of sentences starting with "I accuse". This was followed by more anti-Meckiff comments in the English press, including one that dubbed the bowler "the greatest ogre of international cricket since Larwood". The Evening News proclaimed: "Meckiff's throwing was devastating" and The Star said: "at least two of his wickets were obtained by deliveries which looked to be thrown". Former England spinner Ian Peebles asserted that Meckiff and Gordon Rorke threw "the greater number of balls they deliver", while former English paceman Alf Gover claimed that none of the left-armer's deliveries were legal; it was "ridiculous that a player of his action should be the agent of England's destruction". According to Australian writer Jack Pollard, such headlines relegated the Cold War, which usually occupied the front pages, to the interior of the English newspapers.

By contrast to the strident condemnation of Meckiff in the English press, Australian opinion was mixed. The former Test opener and leading commentator Jack Fingleton said: "when he delivered to Bailey, his fastest ball looked most suspect" and that the left-armer should have been called for throwing. Fingleton claimed to know of five former Australian Test cricketers who felt that Meckiff threw, but only named the 1930s paceman Ernie McCormick. Former Australian player Tommy Andrews claimed: "if they stop throwing in Australia, cricket will die". Former Australian captain Ian Johnson argued that if Meckiff were to be cited for an illegal action for jerking his wrist, then leading English bowlers such as Trueman, Brian Statham and Tony Lock, who played against Australia during the season, should also be sanctioned. As with Meckiff, Lock was under scrutiny at the time and later tried to change his bowling action but the new style coincided with a downturn in results. Johnson also noted that any successful spinner would be called for throwing if the law were enforced strictly because of their flicking of the wrist and fingers during the delivery of the ball, as they could not otherwise extract spin. In 1993, Robert Coleman, the historian of the Victorian Cricket Association, decried the anti-Meckiff campaign as "Fleet Street bleating", and said: "there have been no more hysterical outbursts on the subject than occurred during England's 1958–59 tour". Writing decades after the event, Pollard said "Meckiff, in fact, went to the crease with a beautifully relaxed approach, paused momentarily with his arm absolutely straight, and then let the ball go with a blurred swing of the arm that was impossible to follow from 60 yards away, even with the aid of good binoculars."

Journalists who wrote books about the 1958–59 season made thinly veiled references to the controversy in the names of their work. Fingleton’s account on the series was entitled Four Chukkas to Australia, while E. N. Wellings labelled his tome The Ashes Thrown Away, and accused Meckiff, along with Burke, Rorke and Keith Slater of throwing for Australia in the Tests. An Australian television debate program featured an entire session where English journalists Wellings and Crawford White discussed the throwing issue with former Australian Test cricketers Keith Miller and Sid Barnes.

In the Third Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground Meckiff took one wicket—Bailey—in the first innings, before breaking down with an injury in the second. This ruled him out of the Fourth Test, and he missed a month of cricket before returning for the final Test in Melbourne in mid February, where he removed specialist batsmen May and Ted Dexter. On the field it had been a successful series for the Victorian; he had taken 17 wickets at 17.17, as Australia claimed the series 4–0. These efforts placed him top of the Test bowling averages for the series. When Lindwall was recalled for the Fourth Test in place of the injured Meckiff he was reported to have said "I'm the last of the straight-arm bowlers". The veteran paceman played alongside Meckiff in later matches, including the Fifth Test. Meckiff was also prominent in the two Shield matches against New South Wales, when both teams were at full strength. In the first contest he had match figures of 5/129, his victims including Test teammates Burke, O'Neill and Davidson (twice), but his efforts were unable to prevent defeat. In the return fixture, Meckiff took a total of 7/162; five of his victims were Australian Test batsmen. Victoria held the upper hand, and were 45 runs short of victory in the second innings when time ran out.

Within the wider cricket community there was a steady crescendo of comment condemning the prevalence of bowlers with suspect actions. Prior to the alteration of the bowling law by the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1960, the law stated:

For a delivery to be fair, the ball must be bowled, not thrown or jerked; if either umpire be not entirely satisfied of the absolute fairness of a delivery in this respect, he shall call and signal no-ball instantly upon delivery.