Lives in Cricket No 39 - Alec Watson

27 Chapter Three The Rowley Years Alec did not have to wait long to make his first-class, and county championship, debut. That came on 17, 18, 19 August, 1871 at Derby; it was the first county match to be played on the new County Ground there. Heavy rain ruined the latter part of the first day’s play when Derbyshire were replying to Lancashire’s first innings of 116, to which Watson, batting at No.10, had contributed a duck, being bowled by William Hickton. Not that the weather conditions affected Watson’s bowling performance, for he was not given a bowl in the match, which ended with a Lancashire win by 62 runs. Watson managed four not out in the second innings when he batted last. There is a suggestion by Thompson that Watson was picked as a wicket-keeper rather than a bowler at this time, but there is no confirmation that that was so in this match. At any rate it is obvious that Appleby, MacKinnon and Barlow filled the bowling positions sufficiently well in this match. In their six first-class county matches in 1871 Lancashire won three and lost three, and Wisden noted that Lancashire blooded a number of colts during the season, ‘several of whomwere reported to be of promising excellence’; but the almanack did not mention Alec Watson by name, except in noting that ‘Mr Watson’ played in one match only. This presumably involuntary attribution of amateur status did not extend to the match score, where Alec is listed simply as ‘Watson’. He took no catches, so his debut was a quiet one, but his form was enough to see him return in 1872. In the preliminaries to the 1872 season Alec turned out in two matches important enough to be reported in Scores and Biographies . On 17 and 18 May he turned out for the South of Lancashire against the North of Lancashire at Blackburn. This time he batted as high as No. 3, but could only manage four and fifteen. However, this time he was asked to bowl, taking four wickets for 72 in the match. A week later Watson turned out for Manchester CC against Fifteen Colts of Lancashire. Manchester CC were the original owners of the Old Trafford ground, with Lancashire being only tenants until the two clubs merged in 1880.