Sandy Baxter

Sandy Baxter might have taken a high place among the bowlers of the day had he ever been able to play regularly. In a first-class career extending from 1929 to 1939, he played only 42 matches, but in these he took 189 wickets at 21.74. His one spell of continuous cricket was for E. R. T. Holmes's MCC team in Australia and New Zealand in 1935-36. Apart from this, he made three appearances for Lancashire and two for Middlesex, played for the Gentlemen in 1934, and otherwise for such sides as MCC, Free Foresters, H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI and for his native Scotland. Yet in 1935, for instance, for Leveson Gower's XI against Oxford University at Reigate, he took thirteen for 72 and later in the season, again for Leveson Gower, eleven for 125 against Wyatt's MCC side to the West Indies at Scarborough. He bowled normally fast in-swingers, but is said to have dismissed one Queensland batsman with a ball which, starting outside the off-stump, dipped in very late, pitched on the middle-and-leg, then whipped away and took the top of the middle-and-off. On this trip, in the first-class matches he took 31 wickets at 27.87, and in all matches 58 at 17.93. He was a bowler pure and simple, and the generally accepted view was that, had he not overlapped with C. S. Marriott, he would have been the worst bat and field of his time in first-class cricket. None the less everyone loved to have him on a side. He was so cheerful and friendly, enjoyed his cricket so much, and helped others to enjoy theirs. He had been in the XI at Loretto and originally played for Devon.
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack