This week, as well as the usual tables as previously published, there are a few more obscure facts and figures that can be gleaned from the result cards and the ensuring spreadsheet supplied by the Leinster cricket admin staff.
96 players have taken more wickets bowling than they have scored runs. Top of this pile with an impressive score of +22 is Malahide’s Conor Gibbons, which perhaps reflects more on the excellence of his bowling than his competency with wood in his hands. Running him close is Clontarf’s M Granger with a score of +20, but this has been spoiled by his scoring 4 runs in his 13 matches (although he has had just 2 innings). 96 bowlers have taken more wickets than they have scored runs. Bowlers do tend to bat down the order and have less chances to score runs, but even so this seems a large number at nearly 5% of all players.
M Tayyab of Phoenix leads in the more catches taken than runs scored with a score of +4. Just one catch behind him lurks 4 players, K Virk of Laois, S Denny of The Hills, K Conroy of Wicklow and B Kuruvilla of Swords. Of all four players here, B Kuruvilla is the only one to have registered a single run. There are in total 47 players with more catches than runs.
Tyrrelstown hold an unusual distinction in that despite having taken 23 wickets, not a single one has been a catch or a stumping. Whether this is due to incorrect reporting of results, or is actually the case, it is a strange statistic.
Most clubs seems to take between 45% and 55% of their wickets through catches held, although Terenure have a figure of 63% which may be explained by their home games being played on a mat and Cork County have an even higher percentage at 65%. At the other end of the scale Phoenix only have 21% of wickets through catches and Greystones are at 21%.
The club which has the most players in the top 100 overall point scorers was always likely to be the clubs with the most players and so it is the case that Clontarf, Merrion and Pembroke all have 9 players in that top 100. YMCA are just one behind these clubs with 8. However, the Clubs with the highest percentage of their players in that top 100 are Terenure with 13% of their players in that top 100 and even better are Dundrum with 17%.
Total runs scored by a Club’s batsmen divided by the number of players gives an average runs per player. Top of this list would again be Dundrum with a score of 130. Following on their heels are The Hills with 124 and YMCA with 123.
The same exercise with wickets sees Dundrum again top the table with 6.20 wickets per player, followed by Pembroke (6.07) and YMCA (5.89). The lowest score (excluding the Herald’s team which played just one game) is 1.44 wicket per player for Tyrrelstown. Next come Wexford Wanderers with 2.00 wickets per player.
Merrion have the most wicket taking bowlers with 73, next is Leinster with 66 and Clontarf have 61 successful bowlers.
The percentage of a club’s players who have taken a wicket reflects these days of limited overs for bowlers. Five bowlers required per game is 45% of the team having to bowl and so one would reasonably expect 45% of a club’s players to have taken a wicket. The actual range goes from Wexford Wanderers 43% to The Hills 74%.
There are six clubs yet to effect a stumping in any of their games, Cabinteely, Halverstown, Longford, Lucan, Tyrrelstown and Wexford Wanderers. So if any wicket-keeper takes a stumping soon, expect great rejoicing.
Longford require 1 more wicket to reach 100 for the season, whilst Terenure need 4 wickets to reach 200 and Rush need 3 more wickets to reach 300.
Terenure are on exactly 4,000 runs. Civil Service will pass 6,000 for the season when they get another 12 runs, which one assumes will be in their next game, or if not questions will be asked. Another 57 runs will see Greystones pass 4,000 runs. 83 will see Laois reach the same landmark. 57 runs are also just how much Railway Union are shy of 7,000 runs. Merrion are just 53 runs short of 13,000 for the season. The advantage of running 8 OCC teams! Wexford Wanderers run only one team and they will be keen to score the one run to take them to 600 for the season or even better 201 to take them to 800.