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Andrew Sandham (6 July 1890 – 20 April 1982) was an Englishcricketer, a right-handedbatsman who played 14Test matches between 1921 and 1930. Sandham made the firsttriple century inTest cricket, 325 against the West Indies in 1930, and scored over 40,000first-class runs.

Born inStreatham, London, Sandham made hisSurrey debut in 1911, and wascapped in 1913. In his 26 years at the county Sandham formed a formidable opening partnership withJack Hobbs, and the two put on a hundred for the first wicket on 66 occasions, the highest of these the 428 they accumulated againstOxford University in 1926. He passed 2,000 runs in eight seasons, and during the middle part of his career between 1924 and 1931averaged above 50 in all but two years. He scored an unbeaten 292 against Northants, being denied his triple century only by Percy Fender's declaration, and still holds three record Surrey partnerships, including the 173 he put on withAndy Ducat for the 10th wicket at Leyton after suffering a bout of food poisoning.^[1]

Sandham made hisEngland debutin 1921 againstAustralia, inching his way to 21 in 81 minutes before being bowled by a 'snorter' fromTed McDonald. He went to South Africa in 1922–23 but made only one half-century in his nine innings, and though he was named as aWisden Cricketer of the Year in 1923, he again failed to make much of an impression either againstthe South Africans in 1924 or in Australia the following winter. In 1924Herbert Sutcliffe made his Test debut, and his success as Hobbs' opening partner restricted Sandham's opportunities subsequently. He played only five innings against Australia during his career and thought that the greatest regret of his career.^[1] Sandham went to South Africa in 1926–27 and scored heavily in the matches against domestic opposition, averaging above 60, but was not picked for any of the Tests.

However, he did play in theCaribbean seriesin 1929–30, and it was here that he achieved his greatest fame. In the first Test atBridgetown he made 152 and 51. In the next two games he failed completely, making 0 and 5 atPort of Spain and then 9 and 0 atGeorgetown. In the fourth and final Test atKingston, however, he became the firstTest triple-centurion when he compiled a mammoth 325 out of England's equally imposing total of 849, beatingR. E. Foster's individual Test score record of 287, which had stood for twenty-seven years. The theoretically timeless match was in fact abandoned as a draw after nine days, but Sandham had still had time to make 50 in the second innings; he had scored 592 runs in the series. His aggregate of 375 in the match stood as the Test record untilGreg Chappell eclipsed it. He made the runs with a long-handled bat borrowed from his captainFreddie Calthorpe and a pair of ill-fitting boots borrowed fromPatsy Hendren.^[1] At 39 years and 272 days, he is, by almost five years, the oldest player to break the individual scoring record in Tests.

Sandham went to South Africa with MCC in 1930/31. He broke a bone in his ankle in a motor accident inDurban in December. It required a small operation and ended his tour after two first-class matches. The Kingston Test was therefore to be Sandham's final match at Test level, and his 325 is by some distance the highest score in a final Test match.

He continued to appear regularly for Surrey for a number of years, scoring 219 against the touring Australians in 1934, a record for a county player against that opposition. He recorded his hundredth first-class hundred in 1935 on a damp pitch at Basingstoke, reaching the milestone with 'a flick behind square'. He made 239 againstGlamorgan as late as June 1937, only a month short of his 47th birthday. He scored 102 in his final match in England, againstSussex atHove, but had an unusual end to his career, playing three games atBuenos Aires for Sir TEW Brinkman's XI againstArgentina in 1937–38. These matches were designated as first-class, and so he ended with a whimper, not reaching 30 in any of his six innings in South America.

Afterthe war, Sandham returned to Surrey as coach and delighted in the county's seven successiveCounty Championship titles in the 1950s, later becoming the club's scorer. He died in 1982 inWestminster, London. He was a Catholic.^[2]

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