[srean]

An under-armed ball is essentially un-hitable.

The sporting thing to do is to give the batsman a chance to score but to defeat him using skill. There is no skill in bowling and underarm ball, the batsmen is not being defeated by skill.

That said, never did I imagine that cricket would interest the HN audience.

[LastTrain]

I think it is the violation of centuries old conventions and gentlemen’s agreements that maybe should have been, in hindsight, codified, that has our attention piqued

[foldr]

It's not inherently unhitable. Overarm bowling is a relatively recent development in the history of the sport (rather like overarm serves in tennis). But of course, in this case, the ball was simply rolled along the ground rather than being bowled on the usual understanding of the term.

[nephihaha]

I did play some cricket as a child, and couldn't stand it... But I do remember that we started by underarm bowling. I've no idea whether this is a standard way of teaching it. I did learn overarm bowling. My one moment of joy in cricket was managing to bowl out some boy who was bullying me who was batting at the time. He kept protesting it.

I remember most of it involving standing around waiting for a solid ball to fly through the air at you.

[nephihaha]

> That said, never did I imagine that cricket would interest the HN audience.

It is of little interest to me. I live in Scotland where it is played but barely played. I have played it as a child and detested it. I also remember games on TV going on for days on end and running late so that other programmes got cancelled.

Not one of England's greater contributions to the sporting world.