William James Watson (31 January 1931 – 29 December 2018) was an Australian

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er who played in four

Test matches Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Indoor cricket, Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (associa ...

in 1955. He played

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

for

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

from 1953–54 to 1960–61.

Biography

A right-handed opening batsman, Watson made 155 for

against the MCC at

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

in 1954–55 in his second first-class match. Largely on the strength of that innings, and after only four first-class matches, he was selected in the Sydney Test that began on 25 February 1955, opening with Colin McDonald. He made only 18 and 3, but managed to impress selectors enough that he was picked for the West Indies tour a few weeks later. Although he scored 122 against Barbados, Watson failed to find form against the

West Indians A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED''), the term ''West Indian'' in 1597 described the indigenous inhabitants of the West Ind ...

in the Tests, scoring 27, 6, 22 not out, 30 and 0, and was dropped after the Fourth Test. Watson scored strongly for New South Wales in the 1956-57 domestic season, with 664 runs at 44.26. The season included his highest score, 206, at number five, in an innings victory over Western Australia in Perth, and, opening the batting again, 50 and 198 against Queensland in Sydney. He was selected for an Australian team that toured New Zealand at the end of the season, but made only 23 runs in four first-class matches and was overlooked for selection on the tour to South Africa in 1957–58. In 14 matches in the next four seasons, he made only 450 runs at 25.00, and he retired after the 1960–61 season. Watson worked as a produce agent at the Sydney City Markets.''The Oxford Companion to Australian Cricket'', Oxford, Melbourne, 1996, p. 567.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Bill 1931 births 2018 deaths Australia Test cricketers New South Wales cricketers Australian cricketers Cricketers from Sydney St George cricketers 20th-century Australian sportsmen