Tom Wills, Satan's Little Helper: A Case Study of Throwing in Nineteenth-Century Australian Cricket

Abstract

This paper is based on Tom Wills, one of the great cricketers of the nineteenth century and the first to be called for throwing in Australia. Perhaps the most significant figure in the history of Australian sport because of his role in creating Australian Rules football, it was in cricket that he was best known during his lifetime. Playing for Victoria he became the greatest cricketer in the colonies and a favourite with crowds. The issues around how cricket authorities struggled to come to terms with him remain almost unchanged to this day.