Lives in Cricket No 39 - Alec Watson

76 Chucker? about his being no-balled. In More Than A Game , Sir John Major notes that umpires were timid and deferential by instinct, not given to being contentious. Some, as former players, had been ‘tutored not to upset their social “betters”’. There was also the equivocal position of the umpires with regards to MCC, the de facto rulers of the game. As noted above, the umpires may have felt that they could take no action without a directive and backing from MCC. The latter could have given such a directive and backing, and there were calls for them to do so. However, like other ruling bodies in cricket since then, they did nothing until absolutely compelled to act. Even when they did disqualify Crossland from playing for Lancashire, it was by a fudge which had nothing to do with his bowling. The whole issue came to a head early in the 1885 season. It began with a letter on 1 June to the Lancashire committee from Lord Harris, the captain of Kent. Harris was a stickler for fair play and protocol, and his letter was as strongly worded as lordly politeness would permit. He noted that in 1883 Kent, Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Middlesex, Derbyshire and Surrey had agreed to stamp out unfair bowling, and that Lancashire had stood out from the agreement, on the grounds that there were no unfair actions among county bowlers to take measures against. Sussex and Gloucestershire had also stood out from the agreement. Nash, and particularly Crossland, had continued to play in 1884 and at the start of 1885. Harris admitted and accepted that the umpires had taken no action against Crossland, but pointed out that the agreement had been to suppress bowling that was in any way of doubtful fairness. He maintained that Nash and Crossland certainly fell into that category. Lord Harris wanted action by the time of the return match between the sides in August, otherwise Kent would take such action as it saw fit. He expressed his high opinion of Hornby, the Lancashire captain, and his regret that his remarks ‘should have to be directed against two professional bowlers and against the Lancashire county cricket club’. It is worth pointing out that Lord Harris was not prepared to name Watson as being a bowler ‘whose action is at all doubtful’, and that his letter was directed only against the two bowlers that he named. One can only conclude that, even if Watson’s action was suspect, it was not so obviously such that Harris was prepared publicly to point the finger at him. At any rate there followed a series of letters, all published in the sporting press, between the probably exasperated secretaries of Kent and Lancashire, and the