Generating his pace from an unusual bent-arm action which involved a flick of the wrist, Meckiff reached his peak in the Second Test of the 1958–59 season against England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

[2] Having failed as a spin bowler in a trial at Richmond in 1950, Meckiff switched to fast bowling in 1951–52 when he began his district career in Victorian Premier Cricket with South Melbourne.

The following summer, aged 17, Meckiff was in the senior team and played in South Melbourne's first championship-winning side in his debut season in the First XI,[2] although his club career was sometimes interrupted by national service in the reserves.

[6] At the time, the two states were by far the strongest in Australia; in the past decade, the teams had 18 of the 20 top-two Shield placings between them, and New South Wales were in the process of winning nine consecutive titles.

The paceman took 4/56 and claimed the final wicket, removing Test opener Jim Burke caught for 8 as New South Wales mustered 160,[7] causing the match to end in the first tie in Shield history.

[12] Burke had returned to bat after being injured earlier in the innings, while New South Wales captain Ian Craig, who had been ill, hauled himself out of bed in an attempt to salvage the match after his team had fallen to 7/70.

[20] In addition, the fast bowling all rounder Ron Archer suffered a long-term knee injury during the 1956 tour,[21] while paceman Pat Crawford played only one first-class match in 1956–57 after his marriage broke down.

[25] The following season, when the team for the 1957–58 South African tour was announced, Lindwall's name was omitted, despite his 212 Test wickets, second only to Clarrie Grimmett among Australian bowlers.

[25][26] Meckiff was selected for the tour as part of Australia's generational change, after a single season in first-class cricket,[3] and the squad departed for South Africa in October.

[6][27][28] Under some pressure due to Australia's decision to discard Lindwall and invest in new talent, he opened the bowling alongside Alan Davidson, who up to that point had taken only 16 wickets at 34.06 in 12 Tests.

[34] 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.

[40] 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".

The former Test opener and leading commentator Jack Fingleton said: "when he [Meckiff] delivered to Bailey, his fastest ball looked most suspect" and that the left-armer should have been called for throwing.

[46] 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.

[47][50] In 1993, Robert Coleman, the historian of the Victorian Cricket Association, decried the anti-Meckiff campaign as "Fleet Street bleating",[51] and said: "there have been no more hysterical outbursts on the subject [of throwing] than occurred during England's 1958–59 tour".

[52] Years later, Richardson and some of his fellow batsmen accused the Australian fast bowler of throwing them out, while England paceman Fred Trueman said: "Meckiff's action was totally illegal and that he should never have been allowed to play".

[46] Benaud said he was "completely satisfied that [Meckiff's] delivery was fair and legitimate",[43][56][57] while the selection panel of Don Bradman, Dudley Seddon and Jack Ryder continued to pick the paceman, implying that they regarded his action as legal.

[57] He denied ever throwing, but admitted he may have been open to suspicion after bowling 15 to 20 overs in a day's play, as his body would begin to fall away in the delivery stride due to fatigue.

[66] Dowling said the strident press attacks on Meckiff had amounted to intimidation of umpires through the media,[65] and claimed that some administrators had privately told him that the Australian paceman would be called if he toured England.

[56] Meckiff took match figures of 4/90 as Victoria started the season with a nine-wicket win over South Australia, but he managed only 2/122 as his state lost by an innings to the touring West Indies in the next fixture.

He topped the bowling averages for the Australian first-class season with 58 wickets at 19.86 from ten matches,[6][49] as Victoria won the Sheffield Shield, ending New South Wales' run of titles.

In the New South Wales second innings Meckiff took 3/73, removing Test players Simpson, Davidson and Benaud, to leave his team with a target of 95 runs to win, which they reached with eight wickets in hand.

England set Victoria 287 for victory, and the hosts faced defeat before Meckiff batted late in the order to score 38 and help his side to a draw with one wicket in hand.

[46] As a close friend of the fast bowler, umpire Egar was in a difficult situation; the duo had won a pairs lawn bowling competition just a few months earlier.

[92] At the same time, the South African manager Ken Viljoen set up a camera square of the wicket among the spectators and began filming the left-armer's bowling action.

[97] Barry Gibbs, the secretary of the Queensland Cricket Association and the manager of the Australian team, called the "humiliation" of Meckiff "without a doubt the most dramatic and emotion-charged" sporting moment he had witnessed.

At the dinner, attended by Bill Lawry of Victoria, Barry Shepherd, Ken Mackay and Benaud,[110][111] Bradman showed frame-by-frame slow motion film of Meckiff and other suspect Australian bowlers, which purportedly depicted incriminating actions.

[102] On the third morning of the match, former first-class cricketer Percy Beames, writing for Melbourne's The Age, claimed Meckiff had been used as a "sacrificial goat" and called for the selectors' resignation.

"[57] Cricketer-turned-journalist Dick Whitington asserted that Benaud was aware his fast bowler had been set up, claiming that the Australian captain knew of Bradman's views on Meckiff's action.

[119] Despite this, Meckiff has continued to socialise with people involved in his last Test, including Simpson, Egar, Gibbs, Rowan and Peter van der Merwe, South Africa's vice-captain.