LAST Saturday Patrick Collins of Railway Union was just one of seven centurions as the sunshine brought a glut of high scores in the top two divisions. But what made Collins's day extra special -- and gave him a late call up to the Lightning squad for Monday's game in Milverton -- was the fact that he helped himself to 7-23 when Phoenix batted.
It was Collins's second hundred for the club, but the bag of scalps made it a record-breaker.
Its more than half-a-century since a hundred was teamed with a seven-for in the Leinster senior competitions - and Collins's feat was only the fifth occasion in all. All four previous doubles were made by members of Leinster CC.
In 1920, the second year of the league, the legendary Bob Lambert made 118 and took 8-29 against UCD in Rathmines. The college side were founder participants in the Senior League, but dropped out after a few seasons.
Lambert's team-mate Eddie Ingram was next - doing the double twice against Pembroke at Sydney Parade in 1931 (107 and 8-36) and 1933 (100 and 7-37). The first of those hundreds was made in eighty minutes.
The fourth match double was by the indefatigable Gerry Duffy, who played senior cricket in six decades.
In 1957 he made an unbeaten 115 and took 7-67 on a visit to Park Avenue to play Railway Union.
Cricket Leinster stats guru Gerry Byrne has ascertained that there have been 31 instances of a century and 5 or more wickets in a match. There was also one instance of a wicket keeper scoring a century and taking 5 dismissals in a match.
Pat Collins opened the batting at Phoenix, making his 102 in 123 balls wiith 15 fours and a six, adding 178 for the first wickets with Josh Uddin. His 7-33 came in just 8.3 overs [in which he took the last seven wickets to fall], and perhaps his double is all the more laudable as the first to occur in the limited overs era.
The 24 year old Queensland native, whose father comes from Cork, has ambitions to play for Ireland and takes the next step as part of the Leinster Lightning squad to take on the North-West Warriors in College Park next week.