Lives in Cricket No 39 - Alec Watson

31 The Rowley Years career redounds to his credit. Yorkshire were the next visitors and Alec again had ten wickets in the match with an analysis of 28.3- 12-44-6 in the first innings, but in a match that was lost. Lancashire’s two matches against Kent were each arranged over two days. Even so, the match in Manchester was nearly played out. In the return versus Derbyshire, at Saltergate in Chesterfield, only two days of play were again arranged; there was then no requirement that a first-class match should be arranged for at least three days. After less than five hours of play each side had had an innings, Watson opening both the batting and the bowling, the former unsuccessfully. As an aside: these performances by Derbyshire and its successes in its other two first-class county matches in 1874, both against Kent, led to its being recognised as county champions for that year, when lists of ‘county champions’ began to be compiled some twenty years later. Such listings were on an arbitrary basis, as there was no points system for reckoning the champions, whose ‘election’ therefore owed much to press preference. This pertained until Rowland Bowen in 1959 ‘rationalised’ the lists, maintaining that Gloucestershire were champions instead. In any case only the champions from 1890 onwards are nowadays recognised as ‘official’. Watson did not play in the return against Yorkshire, nor immediately after that for a Lancashire XI against the rebel Yorkshire United XI side. Haygarth notes that Watson could not play, so presumably he was injured; he could hardly have been dropped after recent performances. At any rate it was the first county match he had missed since his debut in 1871, and it was to be a long time before he missed another. In the return against Kent Watson had a strange match. Going in last in Lancashire’s first innings he scored 20; promoted to open in the second he was out for 1. He bowled only 15 overs, and failed to take a wicket; which perhaps indicates that he was still carrying an injury. In 1874 Watson took 32 wickets at 12.96 runs each, and again he, McIntyre and Appleby did the vast bulk of the bowling and wicket- taking. Despite batting up and down the order, Watson’s batting showed little improvement. Lancashire started off the 1875 season again at home to Derbyshire, in yet another match arranged over two days, Watson performing no great feats. However, his next match for Lancashire marked a new point in his career: his debut at Lord’s, and against Marylebone Cricket Club. Haygarth does not note his