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.

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. Watson also played for the Players in a thrilling game against the Gentlemen – taking five wickets for 60 runs – but the following season the return of Shaw and the emergence of Lancashire teammate Steel meant he had no chance of distinguishing himself in representative matches except late in the season against the Australians, where he failed to take a wicket on a very helpful pitch even for the time.

The widespread belief that Watson's delivery was unfair, and that he used his jerky action to flight the ball into strong breezes Watson was fifth in the national averages in 1880, fourth in 1881 and for the first time in his career at the top in 1883 despite the driest summer since the heavy roller was first widely used. but early in the 1893 he was dropped after taking only one wicket in three games. Watson did play once more for Lancashire in 1895 and was when Briggs lost form and Mold strained himself asked to play again at the unparalleled age of fifty-four late in 1898, but he declined. Nonetheless, Watson did play one match at the age of fifty-nine in 1904 for Buckinghamshire, for whom his former teammate and equally controversial slow bowler George Nash had played in the six years before his death.