Lives in Cricket No 39 - Alec Watson

81 Chucker? to have been willing to go into public print at that time on the matter of Watson’s bowling action. In a less litigious age there would probably have been little likelihood of an action for libel if anyone had done so. As noted above, Watson was aware of the complaints, but there is no hard evidence that he made any significant change in his bowling action. Secondly, the reluctance by those bodies who selected representative sides to pick Watson with any consistency must again lead to the inference that at least some people did have doubts about his action. The question must now be asked whether such doubts were justified. As noted above, the wording of Law X was unsatisfactory, and gave no definition of a throw; perhaps it should have been updated to deal with the new bowling styles. The prevailing Victorian attitude seemed to be that for a delivery to be fair it had to be bowled with a ramrod-straight arm throughout, though there seems to have been some who were not overly worried about this matter. From the 1870s to the early 1900s there was concern about bowlers who apparently infringed this canon, and calls for the umpires, backed by MCC, to take some kind of action; calls which largely went unheeded. There is also the issue of why Watson’s bowling action may have been suspect. In the early 1870s it may have been a comparatively novel one, and thereby open to suspicion. Later indeed Bernard Bosanquet’s novelty, the googly, was attacked by some as being unfair, not because it involved throwing, but because it was unusual, and, for a time, successful. Also, there was probably some rotational movement in Watson’s action that involved the wrist, and possibly the elbow; such movement may have been suspect, particularly if it were in conjunction with any slight bend of wrist or elbow. Such movement was possibly not sufficient for critics to demonstrate visibly that he threw, but the suspicion was there. Also it is just possible that Watson’s basic action was acceptable, but that, when he produced something unexpected, such as a ball with an unusual amount of break or one that was quicker than usual or one that shot along the pitch, then the surprised batsman cried ‘throw’. Whatever the case, the suspicions never seem to have ceased completely. Perhaps Alec could have taken refuge in Scots Law’s ‘not proven’ verdict: ‘we think you’re guilty, but we can’t prove it’. So, by the canon of those who were sticklers for the strict interpretation of Law X as demanding a ramrod-straight arm during delivery, Watson probably did ‘throw’. Nowadays, of