Alexander Watson

Alexander Watson (4 November 1844 – 26 October 1920) was a Scottish first-class cricketer who played for Lancashire County Cricket Club. He was one Lancashire's first long-serving professionals, and in his prime formed part of a strong bowling attack with A. G. Steel, Dick Barlow and John Crossland that lifted Lancashire to success in the 1881 and 1882 seasons when they won 22 and lost only one of 29 inter-county matches. Career Watson learned his cricket in his native Scotland for the Drumpelier and Edinburgh Clubs as a fast bowler, but attracted no attention until he moved to Rusholme in 1869 where he was discovered by Lancashire as a slow bowler in the contemporary round-arm style; however, Watson had an unusually deceptive flight for his time and could vary his stock off-break with a ball that turned the other way to great effect. Moreover, Watson was an exceptionally accurate bowler and his short stature and consequent low trajectory meant he was impossible for contemporary batsmen to jump out to and hit. He played for the first time in 1871 but did not bowl; however in the following season he became a regular member of a county team that played only four matches but won them all using merely three bowlers: Watson, Arthur Appleby and William McIntyre! In the following four years, Watson established himself very close to the top of the first-class bowling averages until he ceased being a regular member of the Lancashire eleven. He took nine for 118 against Derbyshire in 1874; amazingly despite taking seven wickets in an innings sixteen times he never took eight or more again. In 1877, owing to the absence of Alfred Shaw and the decline of fifty-year-old Southerton, Watson was for the first time called upon for representative cricket, playing for "England" against the Marylebone Cricket Club and taking on a sticky wicket his best-ever match return of fourteen wickets for forty-nine runs; however, "England" were dismissed by Fred Morley and William Mycroft for 26 and lost the match.