Henry Watkinson

Henry's potential was spotted at an early age and in three seasons in the Cranleigh 1st XI he took 99 wickets, impressing with his pace and aggression with the ball and his powerful middle-order batting. He became an important part of the OCs as soon as he left the school, although appearances were limited by various official MCC junkets, which became even more prevalent after his cricket master, Roger Knight, took over as secretary of MCC. Until his waffer-thin body begun to slowly disassemble in the latter part of the 1990s (some unkind souls claimed that Henry's injuries worsened in direct relation to the ability of the opposition batting strength) Henry was the club's main strike bowler and certainly its fastest . As his pace diminished - and that was a key part of his armoury - he turned his hand to spin with a success which confounded those who labelled him a pie-chucker. In the early years his batting was generally under-used and abused - his first three hundreds all came against our weakest opposition which led to him being discounted - but on his day he remains capable of destroying the best attack, and doing so with some audacious strokeplay. His brief spell as captain was interupted when he spent a year in Australia, and although he struggled for a season, he returned to his best with the ball in 2003 and 2004, although his form with the bat dipped alarmingly.
Personal Details

Full name Henry Charles Watkinson
Born Guildford, August 3, 1972
Height 6ft 1ins
Nickname Hank, Waffer
Batting left-hand middle order
Bowling left-arm fast/spin
Clubs Cranleigh, Clifton, MCC
OC Career 1989 to date
(Captain 1999 to 2000, 2003 to date)
School 1st XI 1988 to 1990
Tours Antigua 1997, Sri Lanka 1999, Kenya 2001, Florida 1998, 1999, 2000, Hong Kong 2005
Career Statistics (as at 30/9/02)

Batting
M I No HS Runs Av 50 100 C St
140 104 12 110 2349 25.53 10 3 62 0

Bowling
O M R W Av BB 5WI SR ER
1042.5 152 4120 195 21.13 6-94 5 32.1 4.0

© OCCC 2002