Division 4 review - Malahide end 23 year wait

Division 4 stats

Leading all time run scorer (2011-2015) - Furqan ul Haq (Railway Union) - 1378 runs @ 33.61
Most runs in a Division 4 season - Mubasher Siddique (Civil Service) - 737 runs (2013)
Highest score - Rashid Mehraj - 199 - Laois 1 vs North Kildare 1 - Togher - 29 July 2012
Leading all time wicket taker (2011-2015) - Manjeet Singh (North Kildare) - 65 wkts @ 16.02
Most wickets in a Division 4 season - Yaqoob Ali (YMCA) - 36 wkts (2011)
Best bowling - Yaqoob Ali - 8-16 - YMCA 2 vs Malahide 3 - Malahide - 10 July 2011
Most matches - Simon Grehan (Railway Union) - 52 - (2011-2015)

Highest team score - 396-5 - Railway Union 2 vs North Kildare 1 - The Maws - 4 Aug 2012
Lowest team score - 53 all out - Civil Service 1 vs North Kildare 1 - The Maws - 15 June 2013

Review

Malahide 2 - Champions - (Predicted 2nd) - Batting Rating 133 - Bowling Rating 135 - Overall Rating 268

Fortress Malahide is a familiar phrase in cricket marketing speak, but there was a large helping of truth when describing Malahide's season in 2015. Six home matches were played (the Greystones match didn't take place), and the champions won every match convincingly. They batted first in the five games that were "full length", scoring totals of 239, 281, 247, 246 and 250. The other match was a T20 against Dundrum that they successfully chased 119. That home form laid the foundation for the title, with the Villagers picking up only their fifth league title, and the first since 1992. Weight of runs definitely seems to be the reason behind the success, with five players passing the 200 run barrier (and another two scoring over 100 at an average of over 40). Richard Wing led the way with 301 at 30.1, with Neil Boyne (who became the first to pass the 1000 career mark for Malahide 2 since 2011 - 1009 at 18.35), Felix Page, Andrew Pyne and Nick Turner all scoring heavily. Boyne weighed in with the ball as well, taking 13 at 19.15 - he was one of six players to complete the 200 run/10 wicket double in Division 4 (the others were all from Dundrum and Civil Service!). The bowling was led by Glenn Kirwan, with 20 wickets at 15.30. Atif Kamal and Will Kindley also passed the 20 wicket mark. So a famous title for Malahide, ending a 23 year wait. The trick will be to cement a place in Division 3.

North County 2- Runners up - (Predicted 1st) - Batting Rating 114 - Bowling Rating 126 - Overall Rating 240

North County were the favourites to be promoted back to Division 3, and whilst they failed to lift the title, they will be happy enough. On the playing front, the season was all about Niall McGovern. He broke Manmeet Singh's 2013 record of most runs for North County 2 in a season, and in the league scored 456 runs at 76.00, although this was only joint 7th on the list of most runs in a Division 4 season, and he became the third player to pass 1000 North County 2 runs since 2011 (after Terry Richardson and Manmeet Singh). The season's crucial match was one in which McGovern didn't play, as County travelled to Malahide. Felix Page and James Garrigan resued Malahide from 135-5, and they ended up with 246-8. County crumbled in the face of a typically parsimonious spell from Jimmy Govan, and a last wicket partnership of 60 between Cian Mulvaney and Asher Abbassi got them from 143-9 to 203 all out - but the title had effectively gone. That match sums up the season well - apart from McGovern, no one really scored, and Sean Rooney was the only other player to amass 200+ runs with 220 at 27.50. County may have found another fast bowler to go with the many being churned out by the club's youth system, Asher Abbasi's debut Leinster season saw him get 21 wickets at 331, a total that is second only to Terry Richardson's 22 wickets in a North County 2 league season (in 2012). Manmeet Singh contributed 14 at 17.07, with Ian Bertram and Fionn Hand getting 12 each.

Civil Service 1 - 3rd - (Predicted 5th) - Batting Rating 92 - Bowling Rating 119 - Overall Rating 211

Service would have been desperate to gain promotion to Division 3, but 3rd place may not have been a bad result, considering that we predicted 5th place. However, there is no denying that this was Civil Service's lowest finish in the last five seasons - a trend that they will be keen to reverse in 2016. Individually, the squad had a decent season - Nilesh Joshi top scored with 311 runs at 34.56, with Naveed Khan, Keith Webster and Mubasher Siddique all passing 200 runs for the season, and with the ball Siddique took an excellent 18 at 14.89, Naveed Khan 15 at 18.73, with Mohammed Fayyaz and Rajath Parashurama both getting past 10 wickets. But with those decent performances, why didn't Service get promoted? Consistency seems to have been a major issue - all of Service's victories were greater then 40 runs or 6 wickets - their defeats were also large at 95 runs, 58 runs, 91 runs, 97 runs and 3 wickets (the latter being the exception). Siddique and Khan were two of the six players in the division as a whole who completed the 200 run/10 wicket double. On the career front, Keith Webster became the fourth player to score 1000 runs for Civil Service 1sts since 2011 (with 1043 at 22.67)

Dundrum 1 - 4th - (Predicted 8th) - Batting Rating 92 - Bowling Rating 99 - Overall Rating 191

Dundrum 1 find themselves in a difficult position. After massive success in the lower leagues in the last ten years, most assume that they should be doing well in Division 4 as well. But in truth, they needed a massive performance this year just to avoid relegation. And that massive performance was achieved, as Dundrum reached their highest ever league position of 28th. The season was very much one of two halves, as Dundrum won six of the first seven, and then won only two of the last seven. It's hasn't even been that easy to pin down a reason as to why that happened. In that first half, no batsman averaged over 30, with Renjith Nair (15 wickets at 15.4) and JK Pillai (11 wickets at 15.27) doing the damage. From that point onwards, the batsmen stood up to the plate (four averaged over 30), but perhaps crucially, Nair and Pillai were no longer a threat. Over the season, five batsmen had decent seasons, with Abilash Sukumaran leading the way with 346 runs at 24.71. The other four batsmen were Srikanth Boddu, Alex Mathews, Sanju Thomas and Vinu Varghese Jacob. Incredibly, seven bowlers took more than 10 wickets. Nair finished the season with 21 at 23.10, and the others were Muhammad Javed, Alex Mathews, JK Pillai, Abilash Sukumaran, Nithin Thambi and Sanju Thomas. Alex Mathews has now totalled 3056 Open Comps runs since 2011, plaing him 7th on the overall list. Renjith Nair now has 157 wickets, placing him 5th on the bowling list.

Railway Union 2 - 5th - (Predicted 6th) - Batting Rating 92 - Bowling Rating 94 - Overall Rating 186

Railway Union 2nd's wait for a league title will stretch to a 49th season (their only league title, was the Senior 2 league in 1967), but in reality they will be happy enough - they improved on 2015's finish by one place. At home in Park Avenue, they won all but one game (loing to Malahide), whilst on the road, they only beat Merrion. Individual performances weren't really that bad, and the only reason that the team performance was not better was a lack of top notch players. No batsman scored over 200 runs at an average of over 40 (Muhammad Farooq hit 232 at 33.14 and Umar Siraj scored 224 at 37.33), and no bowler averged under that magic 16 runs per wicket mark (Andrew Jackson was top with 15 at 17.27, and remarkably Dhramendra Singh and Jitendra Singh had exactly the same return - 13 wickets, 281 runs for an average of 21.62). Several players didn't play a full season (Tim Townend averaged 44 with the bat from his four innings, Andy O'Neil scored 194 runs from his six innings), and with several stalwarts either being promoted to the 1sts, or having pooe seasons, there just wasn't the depth to sustain a title challenge.

Greystones 1 - 6th (Predicted 4th) - Batting Rating 114 - Bowling Rating 91 - Overall Rating 205

The early season unavailability of the new Greystones - Druids Glen ground, along with the late season bad weather, conspired to only let Greystones play nine league games. It undoubtedly had an affect on the team - the run to the semi finals of the National Cup being probably a fairer reflection of the quality of the team. Only seven players played more than six games, and as such there was not much opportunity for anyone to break any records. Two stalwarts of the game in Leinster led the way, with John Fitzsimons leading the way. Of those who have had ten Divison 4 innings since 2011, only former Malahide (and now Strabane) player, Ryan Gallagher has a higher average - Fitzsimons has 558 runs at 50.73 (Gallagher had 404 runs at 57.71). His contribution to the Greystones' effort this year was 326 runs at 46.57. John Moffat was the other mainstay of the batting order - he contributed a mightily impressive 314 runs at 52.33. The bowling was pretty much the same. Manpreet Singh led the way with 18 wickets at 16.78, with Greg Lambert the only other player to pass ten wickets with 11 at 21.

YMCA 3 - 7th (Predicted 3rd) - Batting Rating 88 - Bowling Rating 74 - Overall Rating 162

A mixed bag from YMCA 3. We predicted that they may come in the top three, and that wasn't the case, as they slumped to 7th in a division that has always proved to be very hard for third teams. However, they finished the season as the highest ranked third team in the province - an honour that has been won by more club sthan you may think over the last few years. Malahide 3 were top of the pile in 2011 (in 32nd place), before Pembroke took over the mantle for two years (finishing 29th in 2012 and 30th in 2013). Merrion took over in 2014 (with a 27th placed finish), before YMCA 3 in 2015 (31st). The bowling attack struggled more than the batting, with Kamal Merchant leading the wicket taking with 12 at 24.42. Wickets were hard to come by - only once did YM manage to take ten wickets in an innings. The batting was a little but better, with Nathan Johns annus mirabilis contributing 285 runs at 31.67 and Rory McGovern having 315 at 28.64, his best season so far for the 3rds. With record only going back the start of the 2011 season, career stats are obviously incomplete, but Kamal Merchant now has exactly 100 wickets for YMCA 3, at the astounding average of 9.43

Merrion 3 - 8th (Predicted 7th) - Batting Rating 91 - Bowling Rating 77 - Overall Rating 168

Virtually everything that has just been said regarding YMCA 3, can be repeated for Merrion 3. It seems as if the very best third string bowlers in the province are no match for the second string of the second string batsmen - or something like that. Nitin Sharma finished the season in and around the Merrion 1st team squad, and he was the leading bowler for the 3rds with 17 wickets, albeit at 20.53. As we have already seen, Ajay Varma had a fantastic season with 56 wickets altogether - 14 of those were for the 3rds in the league, but at the average of 26. It's not hard to see why Merrion struggles. The batting saw two of the most entertaining batsmen in Leinster cricket come out as the only two to pass 200 runs. Nicky Kenny hit 328 at 36.44, and Alan Parkinson 283 at 25.73. A special note for Pat Carty, who played one game for Merrion 3 against Dundrum in mid June, and took 6-46 to come top of the averages!

Division 4 batting averages 2015 (Qualification 100 runs)

Division 4 Bowling averages 2015 (Qualification 6 wickets)