No-ball against underarm bowling
During the last moment of the third final (out of best of the five) of the 1980/81 Benson & Hedges World Series Cup between Australia and New Zealand at Melbourne (1st February 1981), the host Australian team, more specifically Chappell brothers, stunned the cricket world.
On the final ball of that match, New Zealand needed seven runs to win while they could tie the game if Brian McKechnie could hit a six on that ball. While the right-arm medium bowler Trevor Chappell was bowling that final over, his elder brother and skipper Greg Chappell instructed him to bowl underarm on the final ball of that match.
The New Zealand cricket team and many others were stunned and didn’t support that act, even Greg and Trevor’s elder brother Ian Chappell was also not supporting that act in the commentary. However, at that time, it was allowed, and the Chappell brothers took that advantage. Furious McKechnie just managed to touch that underarm delivery as New Zealand lost that match by six runs.
After that incident, the underarm bowling was banned from international cricket as it was tagged as “not within the spirit of the game”. At present, the underarm delivery can be counted as a no-ball according to the MCC law 21.1.2 if there is no special agreement about this before the game.