Division 11
Champions – Greystones 2
League MVP – Peter Auret [Slieve Bloom]
A debut season for the ‘Stones Second XI and a league title gained straight off the bat. I say straight off the bat, but with Simon Rice, Leinster’s leading wicket taker, appearing on this team it is more likely to have been off the ball. However, Simon was not the MVP in this Division, or even on his team in this division, finishing third overall and being the second ranked ‘Stones player. Second overall and leading the ‘Greystones charge to the title was E. Lenehan and continuing the trend of MVP’s not coming from the league winners, the overall MVP winner was Peter Auret [Slieve Bloom]. Slieve Bloom had a successful league campaign finishing third, but also captured their first Cup, triumphing in the Junior Cup.
Whilst Greystones had a comfortable enough victory in the Division, with a winning margin of 10.42%, the second promotion place was a close run thing between Slieve Bloom and eventual second placed Clontarf 5’s. Not for the first time the team ahead actually won less games, but in this case they also lost less games. Four games were deemed to be ‘no result’ and again pleasingly there were no walkover wins awarded. Clontarf were most unfortunate with 3 ‘no result’ games and these may have contributed to their finishing second and not challenging Greystones more closely.
Peter Auret [Slieve Bloom] was the only player to cross the 1,000 points threshold and had a final winning margin of 77 points. 22 wickets and over 400 runs demonstrates his fine all-round credentials. Nevertheless Slieve Bloom are no one-man team on the pitch. The figures below show that they have strength in depth and will probably be one of the favourites for next season in this Division. The major surprise was that no player from second placed Clontarf 5’s made it into the top ten point scorers. Either they were a team of specialists, or as we will discover later, they may have used many players and those who performed well rose through the starring lists. The top ten point scorers in Division 11 were:
Bagnalstown, sadly, had a season to forget, with no wins and one no result, but It is great to see the name Ray Stapleton in this list. Ray used to terrify batsmen in the Whelan Cup playing for An Garda Síochána with a pace that was rarely seen in the lower leagues. Playing against An Garda Síochána in those days felt more like 12 eight ball overs to score your runs and 4 from Ray to survive. Steve Wood will also be elated having made the top 5 and I look forward to viewing his Facebook posting on it.
277 players appeared in this 9 team Division, with 68 appearing just the once. Top of the appearances table were D. Ryan [Greystones], P. Singh [Castleknock] and the aforementioned Steve Wood [Wexford Wanderers]. One can only imagine the amount of mileage Steve Wood amasses during a season and you soon realise that when your local derby is Bagnalstown and other games are in places like Slieve Bloom, North County and The Hills why they are called Wexford Wanderers! Two players missed just the one game, J. George [Cabinteely] and Simon Rice [Greystones].
Overall winner Peter Auret [Slieve Bloom] also topped the runs chart and only two players made it over 400 runs. The top five run scorers were:
Seven centuries were scored in Division 12. In highest score order they were:
60 half centuries were recorded by 40 players, with 14 players making more than one. Top of the list, with four fifties, was S. Kumar [Cabinteely] whose highest score was just one run shy of making the centurions list. Others to come close to converting their half century into a full one were James Redmond [Wexford Wanderers] (99), David Drane [Greystones] (98 in his one appearance), F. Khalid [Castleknock] (96) and J. Magee [The Hills] (93*). It was a surprise to see as talented a batsman as David Drane playing in this league for Greystones Seconds, but I suppose a combination of his back keeping him out for more than four weeks and being removed from starring and the fact that he played in Division 12 in 2012 with Greystones First XI meant that the OCC were powerless to prevent it. The full list of players who made multiple fifties is:
B. Thambi [Castleknock] tops the batting average with 117.00 with 117 runs from his only innings in this Division. The top 5 batting averages (with no qualifications, but innings shown in brackets) were as follows:
There were 8 batsmen who technically have an average of infinity, having scored runs and not been dismissed at all. They are shown here with their runs and number of innings: N. Beuck [Greystones] (23/1), Z. Azhar [Castleknock] (20/2), A. Gilbride [Clontarf] (14/1), B. McMahon [The Hills] (7/1), A. Varghese [Wexford Wanderers] (6/1), W. Barr [Castleknock] (5/1), J. Bowes [Bagnalstown] (3/1) and P. Mitchell [Slieve Bloom] (1/1).
Simon Rice [Greystones] was the Leinster leagues leader in wickets taken and he found the majority of his victims in this Division. The top 5 (and ties) wicket takers were:
Four of the top five bowling averages belong to players from Greystones. However, they must have had difficulty prising the ball from the hands of Simon Rice as they had only opportunity to take 8 wickets between them. There also has to be mention of S. Munawar [Slieve Bloom] who took his 25 wickets at just 7.56. The top five (and ties) bowling averages were as follows with the number of wickets taken in brackets also:
In order of the best bowling analyses, the 11 players who took a five wicket haul were as follows: F. Khalid was the only player to do so twice.
Somewhat surprisingly Simon Rice [Greystones] was only the third most used bowler. One bowler bowled more than 100 overs and the top five bowlers in terms of overs delivered were as follows. Of course this doesn’t show how many no balls and wides they bowled or even how many they were called for.
132 players held at least one of the 314 catches this season in this Division. The top five (and ties) were as follows (players who also had a stumping are shown with an * although we do not know if they were regular keepers):
The 12 stumpings were taken by 8 keepers, regular or otherwise. Top stumper was James Redmond [Wexford Wanderers] with 3, whilst C. Cuneen [The Hills] and D. Ryan [Greystones] managed to take two. The other swift-gloved keepers were T. James [Clontarf], C. Morrison [North County], M. Donegan [The Hills], J. King [Bagnalstown] and following in footsteps, James Redmond Junior [Wexford Wanderers].
In a quirk ofstatistics, Player Unregistered played one game for Castleknock, but batted twice getting 18 and 4 for an average of 22.
In terms of players used (including Player Unregistered), the league looks like this:
As with all of these articles, the views expressed therein of those of the author and definitely do not represent those of the Leinster Cricket Union. They might match your views, but if they do, it is more likely to be a co-incidence than anything else. They are to be considered merely the inconsequential ramblings of a fool. Any feedback or requests for individual, team, Club or all-encompassing statistics may be sent to craig@cricket.ie.