Sandy

Fantasy Bob cannot be alone in finding misleading the name given to the hurricane that has so destructively blasted New York and its environs this week. Sandy is too benign a name and does not carry much threat - by comparison the storm which struck Scotland last year was appropriately named Hurricane Bawbag.  Sandy seems to be an even bigger bawbag.

But FB's problem with the name Sandy is that, growing up the north east of Scotland, every other boy that FB ever encountered was called Sandy.  Sandys were everywhere.  Roll call at school would run: Sandy - here; Sandy, here; Sandy; here; and so on till the end of the roll................................Sandy, here; Bob.............what kind of a name is that?

These days Alexander seems less popular as a name and those who are so blessed no longer call themselves Sandy. Somehow Sandy has become more common as a girl's name, so it can be used for Hurricanes.  Alexanders now call themselves Zander or Alex or Alec....or anything really other than Sandy.

There have been some celebrated sporting Sandys - the great Sandy Lyle most prominently.  But FB cannot bring to mind any cricketing Sandys.  However there are many cricketing Alexanders - and had they hailed from the north east of Scotland all of them would have been called Sandy.  So here is FB's Sandys XI:

Sandy Stewart - 133 Tests, 8463 runs, 277 dismissals

Sandy Bedser - 51 Tests 236 wickets

Sandy Loudon- selected for theTest squad to tour Pakistan in 2005 as second spinner in support of Ashley Giles. Played one ODI v Sri Lanka in June 2006. He retired in 2007 and was linked romantically with Pippa Middleton.  (Go Sandy!)

Sandy Hales - English T20 specialist and featured in England's highest ever run chase against West Indies scoring 99 before getting out with the game almost won.

Sandy Swann - played for Northamptonshire and Lancashire scoring 3,305 first-class runs. He is the older brother of Graeme Swann and is currently the cricket correspondent of the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph.

Sandy Hearne - played for Kent between 1884 and 1906 and was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in1894. He also played one Test match for England in South Africa in 1892-3.

Sandy Hurwood - played 2 Tests for Australia in 1930-31.  He was renowned for his odd bowling style - taking only a couple of steps before delivering the ball.

Sandy Coxon - a Yorkshire paceman who played 1Test in 1948.

Sandy Thompson - a regular in the dominant Middlesex side of the late 1940s but overshadowed by his more illustrious team-mates Denis Compton and Bill Edrich.

Sandy Bannerman - a member of the first Australian team in England in 1878, he also paid five other visits to England, coming over with the teams of 1880, 1882, 1884, 1888 and 1893. The most famous of all stonewalling batsmen; in 1891-92, he took seven hours and a half to score 91 in a match against England. The innings was spread over three days and he scored from only five of the 204 balls bowled to him by Attewell.

Sandy Tudor - Surrey and Essex played 10 Tests before his career was disrupted by injury.  against New Zealand in 1999 he hit 99 not out, the highest-ever score by an English nightwatchman cruelly deprived of his ton when Graham Thorpe hit the winning run.

The Sandys XI