Stormy Weather

Storm Gertrude - no cricketing interest

As Fantasy Bob wearily trudges through the worst of January's weather, he finds himself wondering exactly what motivated the Met Office to grant names to the storms that have raged across these islands.  It seems to FB that the act of naming has done nothing more than get these storms coming off their long run.  'Look at me, look at me - I'm Gertrude.'  Look at me look at me I'm Henry.'
There was no such showmanship when they were anonymous - they would simply pass without drawing too much attention to themselves.

If the modern world requires names then at least they good have good names rather than the random hotchpoch that has appeared. There are no connections or themes and most of them don't even sound stormy.
Having just weathered - ha! - Gertrude and Henry, we can now look forward to Imogen.  Long suffering readers of these pages may recall that FB once had his own storm associated with Imogen, but in other respects it seems to FB a pretty poor name for a storm.
The problem with the list of names is clearly its minimal cricketing content.  FB thinks that this was an opportunity lost.  After all, there are many cricketers whose destructive power in its context bears comparison with any storm.
It would have been a tonic to cricketers buffeted by wind, rain, snow and hail to be able to compare the destruction around them to that caused by swaggering batsmen or intimidating pace bowlers.
So FB does the Met Office's work for them and offers his list of storm names for use by cricketers:


AB -  deVilliers - fastest ODI century - 100 in 31 balls v WIndies, J'burg 2015;
Beefy - Botham could cook up a storm with bat or ball (and with the management) - 200 in 212 balls v India, the Oval 1982
Curtley - Ambrose - meanest of mean pacemen - 405 Test wkts @20.99
David - Warner - 100 in 69 balls v India, Perth 2012
Eion - Morgan - 178 from 167 balls v S Africa, the Oval 2009
Fred - Flintoff - most 6s for England
Gilly - Adam Gilchrist - joint most 6s in Tests; 100 in 57 balls v England, Perth 2006 (or if he is unavailable - Gayle (pun intended)
Holding - whispering death - 249 Test wkts @ 23.68
Imran - Khan -  In 9 Tests in 1982 he took 62 wickets at 13.29
Jimmy - Anderson - England's leading wicket taker and still going
Kapil - Dev - 100 off 74 balls v Sri Lanka, Kanpur 1986
Lara - Highest Test innings - 400* v England, Antigua 2004
McCullum -  Brendon - joint most 6s in Tests
Nathan - Astle - fastest double century in Tests - 200 off 153 balls v England, Christchurch 2001
O'Reilly - Bill - 144 Test wkts @22.59 - the best bowler of his age
Pollard -  Kieron - 119 off 52 balls v India, Chennai 2011
Qadir- Abdul - finer than Warne - 236 Test wkts @ 32.80
Richards - the Master blaster - 100 in 56 balls v England Antigua 1986
Shahid - Afridi - 102 in 37 balls v Sri Lanka  Nairobi 1996
Tyson - Frank - the fastest ever
Ul  -Misbah Ul Haq -  100 in 56 balls v Australia, Abu Dhabi 2014
Virender - Sehweg - fastest triple century - 300 off 278 balls v S Africa, Chennai 2008
Wasim - Akram - 414 test wickets @ 23.62
Yuvrav - Singh - 6 sixes off the over - v England (ie Stuart Broad), Durban 2007
Zaheer - Abbas - the first Asian to score 100 FC centuries


Now that list is something to sing about - Stormy Weather indeed.