Immediately successful, he quickly established a good bowling partnership with Johnny Briggs and became one of the leading bowlers in the country.

Controversy erupted in 1900 when Mold was no-balled for throwing by Jim Phillips, an umpire who had targeted several prominent bowlers with dubious bowling actions.

In his second year, a successful match against the Free Foresters, an amateur team, impressed two Lancashire cricketers who played against him.

[3] At the time, cricketers who wished to play competitive first-class matches for a county in which they were not born had to live there for two years to qualify.

[9] He made his first-class debut for the county in a three-day match against Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) starting on 9 May 1889, taking one wicket in a drawn game.

[3] After a slow start in unhelpful conditions and unsuitable playing surfaces for his type of bowling, he took a total of 33 wickets in four consecutive games and established a reputation as the fastest bowler in England.

According to Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, "The season of 1891 brought him a great increase of reputation, and all through the summer he was uniformly successful.

[1][6] It is likely that doubts about the legality of his bowling action prevented him from playing further Test matches, or touring Australia with a representative side.

"[22] Although Mold appeared for the North against the Australians, who toured again in 1896, he did not play any Tests or other representative cricket that year and his wicket total fell to 150 at 18.12;[6][11] after this season, his bowling began to decline in effectiveness.

[29] The issue intensified in 1896 when two of the Australian touring team, Ernie Jones and Tom McKibbin, seemed to throw the ball regularly; Sydney Pardon, the editor of Wisden, wrote: "The mortifying fact was that the illegal bowling was due entirely to our own weakness in not having the laws of the game carried out.

Jim Phillips, an Australian-born umpire who journeyed each year between his native country and England, travelled to Australia with an English touring team in 1897–98.

[note 6] Upon returning to England for the 1898 season, Phillips also called C. B. Fry, a prominent amateur cricketer and all-round sportsman, for throwing.

[33][34] The concerted action against throwing reached a peak when Phillips umpired the match between Nottinghamshire and Lancashire in Nottingham on 26 June.

[37] The match reports in both The Times and Wisden commented that Mold had been lucky never to be no-balled before in his career;[33][35] he was the most high-profile bowler to be called in the Phillips-led crackdown on bowling actions.

The MCC, responsible for the laws of cricket and the organisation of the English game, were asked to adjudicate by several county committees.

[10] Although he may have been expected to retire following the controversy and in view of his age, Mold continued to play for Lancashire, who were short of quality bowlers, at the start of the 1901 season.

The crowd at the game protested noisily against Phillips, for a time shouting "no-ball" as every ball was bowled, and making comments about him.

"[51] At the conclusion of the match, Mitchell and Kenyon, a film-making company based in Blackburn, filmed the players leaving the field and took footage of Mold bowling in the nets to Hornby.

"[54] In December 1901, the MCC approved the scheme previously suggested—that the county captains should meet to discuss the fairness of suspected bowlers.

Indeed the improvement was so marked as to make it clear that, if the captains stick to their guns, we shall soon be entirely free from the evil of which not very long ago it seemed impossible to get rid.

[31] Mold played another three matches in 1901 without being no-balled for throwing, but his reputation was ruined and he retired at the end of the season,[6][38] although Lancashire had offered him a new contract.

[19] The memorial on his gravestone states: "This stone was erected by his old cricketing friends as a token of their affection, admiration and respect".

[3][52] Unusually for a bowler of his pace, he could make the ball deviate from straight, either through seam movement or cutting his fingers over it before release,[3] but most of his wickets were taken through sheer speed.

[10] His obituary in the Manchester Guardian stated that he was among the fastest bowlers of all time and his bowling action was "beautiful" and possessed "fine grace".

Even though he believed Mold was trying to bowl with a straight arm in the Somerset match, Phillips considered many more deliveries to be throws than merely those he called.

[59] The Manchester Guardian, reporting on the Somerset match in 1901, noted that many umpires had apparently viewed Mold's action as fair earlier in the season, even after the instruction from the MCC to pay careful attention to him.

"[48] However, some critics noted that when bowling an occasional faster ball, Mold's action changed slightly; this was the delivery to which Phillips objected.

[61] Cricket historian Don Ambrose suggests that Mold probably did throw his faster delivery, which may have accounted for the high proportion of his wickets which were bowled.

However, Ambrose also suggests that in the Somerset match, Phillips was determined to end Mold's career and that not every delivery that he called was actually a throw.

"[19] Mold's Times obituary stated: "He was a deadly fast bowler, but, all through his career, even his best feats in the cricket field were spoken of with something of apology".