Division 10 stats
Leading all time run scorer (2011-2018) - Peter Auret (Slieve Bloom) - 991 runs @ 33.03
Most runs in a Division 10 season - Anthony Coates (Ringcommons) - 600 runs (2013)
Highest score - Peter Auret (Slieve Bloom) - 184 - Slieve Bloom 1 vs Terenure 3 - Terenure - 16 May 2015
Leading all time wicket taker (2011-2018) - Nicholas Jagoe (Railway Union 5) - 55 wkts @ 13.25
Most wickets in a Division 10 season - Anthony Coates (Ringcommons) - 29 wkts (2013)
Best bowling - Sandeep Sood (Civil Service) - 9-15 - Civil Service 3 vs Malahide 5 - Civil Service - 3 Jul 2011
Highest team score - 355-3 - YMCA 4 vs North Kildare 3 - Claremont Road - 27 Aug 2011
Lowest team score - 38 all out - Pembroke 5 v Railway Union 5 - Sydney Parade 1 - 4 Aug 2013
Most Matches in Division 10 (2011-2018) - Paul Byrne (Railway Union) - 46 (2013-2016)
Cricket Leinster's new website will be launching in the spring, but until then all player stats for the last eight seasons can be found at https://www2.cricketstatz.com/ss/web.aspx?mode=104&club=4530&team=.
Team of the Year (listed in the order, five batsmen/one wicketkeeper/five bowlers)
Batsmen: Sandeep Shahdeo (DLR County) (Div 10, 2017), Ghanshyam Godara (DLR County), Rajagopal Gopalakrishnan (Mullingar), Sunil Parashar (Adamstown), Abhijith Mathew (Tyrrelstown)
Wicketkeeper: Sachin Mistry (Civil Service) (Div 6, 2011)
Bowlers: Navaneethakrishnan Venkataramanan (Adamstown), Rana Hasan Ur Rahman (Civil Service), Tristan Couper (Mullingar), Prasan Shah (Civil Service), Ronak Modi (Civil Service)
Review
Runs per wicket for all teams - 2.24 Runs per over for all teams - 5.14
Civil Service 2 - Champions - (Pos in league - 74 (2017 - 71)) - Batting Rating 124 - Bowling Rating 140 - RpO for 5.78 - RpO against 4.32
One of the biggest winning margins in the Leinster leagues this season saw Civil Service 2 win Division 10 by 71 points. Civil Service 2 won their fourth league title, and their first since 2004. A note of warning though - this was the lowest league position recorded for the team in the last eight seasons, and in many ways the title was the start of correcting several years of under-achievement. But you can only beat the opposition that has been put in front of you, and Civil Service did that clinically, with strong all round performances with bat and ball. As with most successful teams, there was a small squad (only 20 players were used), and with seven of them making good contributions, the title was never in doubt. Four players made our Division 10 Team of the Year, and we'l start with their performances. Sachin Mistry returns to a Team of the Year after a seven year gap, as the wicket keeper with most dismissals in the division. On top of that, he scored 214 runs at 35.67 including 103 away to Lucan. Rana Hasan Ur Rahmanhad a brilliant all round season, but made our Team with his bowling - 20 wickets at 10.80. He was the fourth Civil Service 2 player to take 20 wickets in a league season (since 2011) and the first to do it since Praveg Arkadi and Shamil Shahzad both achieved the feat in 2013. Prasan Shah comes next with 12 wickets at 11.42, as well as 327 runs at 29.73, and Ronak Modi is the fourth member of the illustrious team with a very solid 270 runs at 45 and 13 wickets at 11.92. Urvin Desai led the team with 10 wickets at 16.80, with support from Harshit Jain (10 wickets ar 20.8) and Prashant Tiwari (11 wickets at 12.64). And a final note, there are two approaches to teams at this level (below 1st teams). The best organised clubs (at all levels) try and get youth players into their side with a view to introducing people to cricket - and hopefully keeping the odd one for the future. That is a luxury that many clubs can't afford (yet), and Civil Service went down this efficient and pragmatic route, with not a single youth player appearance in this triumphant season.
Tyrrelstown 1 - Runners up - (Pos in league - 75 (2017 - 110)) - Batting Rating 94 - Bowling Rating 115 - RpO for 5.06 - RpO against 5.61
Their second season in league cricket, and Tyrrelstown continue to find it easy, climbing 35 places in their 110th in 2017. With the last preparations being made to finally move into their new ground in Tyrrelstown, they will be a real force over the coming years. It was something of an odd season though. We rank their batting as only the 6th best in the division, and whilst their bowling was second best, their eventual runners-up spot was due to tenacity and coming out on the right side of a remarkable number of close games. They beat Adamstown by 12 runs and 11 runs, Castleknock by 10 runs and Mullingar by 3 wickets. None of the matches could be said to be one sided, and the team must have been exhausted by the end of it. The one representative on the Team of the Year was Abhijith Mathew, who was dominant with bat and ball He took 23 wickets at 13.87 and scored 299 runs at 32.22, leading the team's wicket taking charts. The leading run scorer was Rajkumar Koka who hit 411 runs at 31.62, and support came from Sairam Goud Ayella (258 at 25.8) and Suresh Kumar Madhikanti (230 at 20.91).
Adamstown 3 - 3rd - (Pos in league - 76 (2017 - 77)) - Batting Rating 106 - Bowling Rating 106 - RpO for 4.96 - RpO against 4.66
Adamstown 3 seem to have settled their place in the general league structure, being between 75 and 77 for each of the last three seasons. That would imply a 1st team of around the 14th best in the province mark, and you would have thought the club would be aiming higher. Which in turn means Adamstown 3 need to move up in the league a bit more. But enough of the dreaming at this end, and back to the stats! A strong end to the season saved Adamstown a bit - they were 3-6 around the beginning of August, but won four of the last five to finish 7-7. At the centre of that was a horror run of six defeats in seven matches across the height of the summer. Sunil Parashar made our Team of the Year with 211 at 35.17, but that included a century at home to Lucan, but the dominant batsman in the team was Aman Sangwan who played all the matches, and scored 375 runs at 31.25. No one else scored more than 200 runs, and apart from Parashar's ton, no one scored more than 74*. Navaneethakrishnan Venkataramanan made our TotY as a bowler with 12 wickets at 10.25, but he only played six matches. Sunny Sehrwat provided the back bone for the bowling attack (in much the same way as Sangwan with the batting). Sehrwat took 22 wickets at 19.73, the highest number of league wickets in the season for Adamstown 3 since Shazid Rahim took 21 in 2015. Sangwan himself took 16 wickets at 22.75 and Mahanti Raj Kumar took 12 at 19.33. Those bowling averages made all the difference - title winning teams have a few bowlers who take 12 wickets at less than 15. As a comparison with Civil Service, 9.7% of the team's appearances were by youth players.
DLR County 3 - 4th - (Pos in league - 77 (2017 - N/A)) - Batting Rating 107 - Bowling Rating 91 - RpO for 5.26 - RpO against 5.28
When two clubs merge, there is always a period of time, before the true benefits can be found. Dundrum Cabinteely merged in the winter of 2017/2018, and on the pitch not a huge amount changed. DLR County 3 finished 77th in the league - Cabinteely 1 finished 79th in 2017. And all the key players in DLR County 3's season were ex-Cabinteely players, two of them making our Team of the Year. Only six players in the entire province played more Open Comps cricket in 2018 than Sandeep Shahdeo, and he made the most of the opportunities with 388 runs at 48.50 and 15 wickets at 20.60. Ghanshyam Godara was similarly prolific with bat and ball, scoring 409 runs at 40.90 and taking 16 wickets at 23.5. Two more players warrant a mention (both ex-Cabinteely). Nikhil Katare scored 208 runs at 26 and Piyiush Sharma took 11 wickets at 22.55.
Mullingar 2 - 5th - (Pos in league - 78 (2017 - 78)) - Batting Rating 98 - Bowling Rating 98 - RpO for 4.95 - RpO against 4.55
Not the best of seasons for Mullingar 2, but although they finished level with their worst ever place, they held their own in a competitive league. A general word of warning though. These articles have stayed off the thorny subject of starring this year, and in fairness a trawl through hundreds of scorecards seems to suggest that the OCC and the clubs have finally got their houses in order. But is it a refrain from many that it doesn't really matter, that the odd player doesn't make much difference if a player plays "down". Cavon Hall has been a brilliant addition to Mullingar over the last few years, and made both Divisions 6 and 10 Teams of the Year in 2017. So he shouldn't really have been playing for the 2nds in 2018. And in fairness to every one, he didn't......much. But he did play four games, with Mullingar winning three of them (in a season when they won five in total, and bottom placed Lucan won four). In those four games, Hall scored 361 runs at 120.33. Tristan Couper made the TotY with an excellent 18 wickets at 11.11, which included a career best 5-8 against Balbriggan (which also included a hat trick). Plenty of others made contributions - Parvaz Ahmed was the key allrounder, scoring 207 runs at 23 and taking 12 wickets at 17.25. Craig Sweeney was prolific with the ball with 19 wickets at 23.21, and Conor Mount was as reliable as ever with 14 wickets at 18.36. The batting was completed by Rajagopal Gopalakrishnan with 286 at 35.75 (earning him a place on the Team of the Year) and Robert Delaney with 201 at 20.10. Mullingar's youth contribution was 3.92%
Castleknock 2 - 6th (Pos in league - 79 (2017 - 78)) - Batting Rating 84 - Bowling Rating 98 - RpO for 5.14 - RpO against 5.11
A so so year for Castleknock 2. At the end of June they were 3-2, but didn't kick on from there, finishing the season at 6-7. But 79th in the league is a position not to be sniffed at, and in an era where lots of sides are sliding down the leagues (due to their being more teams entering the league), we should perhaps lavish more praise on those teams who are holding their own. There was a large squad, but one name was missing - and this is the final comment on starring (for Division 10 anyway!). Where as Mullingar got away with a few matches for their star, Castleknock were in an identical position with Muhammad Nurulain Boda, who dominated at this level in 2017. Instead of playing the odd game in Division 10, Boda played exclusively for Castleknock 1. Castleknock took the moral high ground, but lost out on the pitch because of it. Only one player passed 200 runs - Sardar Rashid made his debut in Leinster and had a useful season with 210 runs at 52.5 (although he only played four games in Division 10). The bowlers were a little bit more successful. Joint top wicket takers were Afkar Ahmed (with 11 at 15.27) and Sagar Khatri (11 at 19.91). Pardeep Singh also chipped in with 10 wickets at 15.70. In keeping with the theme, Castleknock's youth contribution was .....0%.
Balbriggan 3 - 7th (Pos in league - 80 (2017 - 88)) - Batting Rating 103 - Bowling Rating 77 - RpO for 5.14 - RpO against 6.17
Readers may get throughly cheesed off with this column's reference to team's position in the overall league as opposed to within the division. But it really is the only way team's performance can be fully analysed, and Balbriggan 3's season shows exactly why. On the surface it looks like a poor season for Balbriggan, who finished 7th with five wins, and presumably will be relegated for 2019. But in the bigger picture, it was Balbriggan's highest ever league finish, eight places higher than their previous best in 2017. They had a different development approach to the other teams in the division, with 17.61% of appearances being youth players, and top of the pile amongst those was 14 year old Eoin Birch who took 12 wickets at 19.25. At the other end of the spectrum was Iftikhar Sabir who keeps running in with 16 wickets at 26.88. Those were the shining lights in a bowling attach that we have rated as the worst in the division. The batting was much healthier, although of the eight players to pass 100 runs for the season, only two went on to top 200. Best of those was ex Merrion player Shahrukh Nawaz who scored 295 runs at 32.78, being followed by Tayyeb Hassan who hit 223 at 18.58.
Lucan 1 - 8th (Pos in league - 81 (2017 - 81)) - Batting Rating 92 - Bowling Rating 87 - RpO for 4.96 - RpO against 5.63
2018 was always going to be a tough ask for Lucan 1 They finished at an all time high of 81st in the league in 2017, and if they did the same again - they would come last. So although that prophecy came to pass, in some ways they did better than expected, beating Adamstown and Tyrrelstown twice each. Only one year in the previous five seasons has Ali Hashmi not been the team's leading run scorer in the league (in 2016 when Raees Rahman took the honour), and although Hashmi once again led the batting, it probably needs others to take up the mantle if the club are going to move up the leagues. This season's contribution was 345 runs at 31.36, with Shahbaz Ahmed also doing well with 293 at 26.64. His 109 away to Balbriggan was the highest score for a Lucan player not called Ali Hashmi and the highest scorer ever by a Lucan opener. As with Balbriggan's bowling attack, other teams took a liking to Lucan's bowling, and although there were plenty of wickets, they came at a cost. Only when Arijit Mustafi took 25 wickets in 2014 has a bowler taken more wickets in a league season than Jatinder Kumar's 21 this year, and at a commendable average of 17.38. Abdul Ashraf was next with 17 at 17.24, followed by three bowlers who took 12 wickets - Shahbaz Ahmed (at 31.75), Shaikh Jawaduddin (at 18.83) and Manjinder Singh (19.5).
The full Division 10 batting averages can be found here, whilst the bowling averages are here