Shane Robert Watson (born 17 June 1981) is an Australian former cricketer who played for and occasionally captained the Australian national cricket team between 2002 and 2016. He was an all-rounder who played as a right-handed batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler. He was ranked as the world's No. 1 all-rounder in Twenty20 Internationals (T20I) for 150 weeks, including an all-time record of 120 consecutive weeks from 13 October 2011 to 30 January 2014. He began playing during the Australian team's golden era in the early 2000s, and was the last player from this era to retire. In his time playing for Australia, Watson was part of their winning squad in the Cricket World Cup three times (in 2003, 2007, and 2015) and in the ICC Champions Trophy twice (in 2006 and 2009, with Watson named as the player of the match in the final on both occasions). Watson also played Twenty20 cricket for a number of leagues around the world, including the Indian Premier League (IPL). He was named the player of the tournament in the IPL twice (in 2008 and 2013) and won the tournament twice (in 2008 and 2018). He continued to play in Twenty20 leagues after his retirement from international cricket in 2016, and retired from all forms of cricket in 2020. Early life and career Watson was raised in Ipswich, Queensland. For his education he attended St Marys Primary School and Ipswich Grammar School. He began playing cricket at an early age and represented Queensland Primary Schools in an interstate championship in Darwin in 1993. He began playing club cricket in Ipswich for the local Brothers club, then played Brisbane Grade Cricket for Eastern Suburbs. He represented the state at both under-17s level (in 1996/97) and under-19s level (in 1997/98, 1998/99, and 1999/00), and ultimately represented Australia in the 2000 Under-19 Cricket World Cup. Watson was an AIS Australian Cricket Academy scholarship holder in 2000. Before 2000, players who were part of the academy were required to play cricket in their home states in the following year, but a rule change that year made Watson a free agent, and he chose to move to Hobart, Tasmania where he was guaranteed an immediate place in the Tasmanian state team. He played for Tasmania in the second half of the 2000–01 Sheffield Shield season, making his way up the order from batting at number 7 on debut