Oh God, in whichever form you take, did you only tease us last season? The sun, the heat: where have you gone? Last weekend was almost a complete wash out for games with shower after shower merging into one continuous downpour. The funny thing is our Government want to charge us for that stuff.
Personally I did get a game played, although only due to the superb drainage of the Halverstown pitch, a good artificial and the willingness of players and umpires to remain in the middle whilst all around kept under cover and the best job was being next man in, padded up and unable to umpire. However, all round the province games fell to the weather and the amount of re-fixes to be made must be taking up a lot of email time between clubs, captains and in extreme cases, the LCUOCC. Many a weekday evening will be taken up with T20 games replacing a lost weekend league game.
The good news is that this has given people a chance to clear the backlog of unreported/incomplete result cards submitted and allowed Paul Reynolds to do his weekly magic in producing figures for what is a large league structure. Fourteen divisions, each with 8 teams does mean a lot of cricket and a lot of reporting on it.
Our reporting begins with a Sandyford player topping the overall points, whilst Balbriggan have the top run scorer, Leinster provide the leading wicket taker this week and North County have player with the most catches this season to date.
Overall Fantasy Points The top three last week have all remained in the podium positions, albeit in a different order. This week’s leader, the holder of the yellow baggy if you will, is P. Peethambaran [Sandyford]. His total of 491 points see him leapfrog P. Rodgers [Leinster] and last week’s leader, J. Murphy [Rush] both of whom did not get to take to the field this wet windy weekend.
The full top 33 this week are:
P. Peethambaran Sandyford 491 [54]
J. Murphy Rush 479 [21]
P. Rodgers Leinster 383 [189]
J. Ahmad Slieve Bloom 373 [14]
A. Verma Lucan 355 [136]
D. Delany Clontarf 345 [86]
Adrian Harper Balbriggan 343 [26]
J. Singh Castleknock 341 [88]
H. Oppermann Clontarf 341 [244]
P. Auret Slieve Bloom 337 [30]
A. Singh North Kildare 330 [95]
E. Lenehan Greystones 315 [38]
C. Siddell Malahide 307 [41]
M. Hippolitus Dundrum 300 [45]
M. Raza R&SPU 300 [206]
S. Mathews Cabinteely 296 [52]
J. Kumar Lucan 296 [219]
Ross MacMahon Leinster 288 [8]
H. Shivmangal Knockharley 287 [235]
S. Tariq Castleknock 284 [60]
I. Haidry Rush 279 [155]
M. Singh Greystones 278 [65]
R. Abbasi Castleknock 278 [156]
P. Byrne R&SPU 268 [277]
Z. Mohuddin North County 268 [277]
R. Wing Malahide 268 [407]
Conor O’Gorman Leinster 264 [172]
C. Burke Rush 263 [176]
Asher Javed Longford 261 [180]
S. Kumar R&SPU 259 [300]
A. Kavanagh The Hills 254 [314]
U. Raees Laois 252 [90]
A. Matharoo Adamstown 251 [192]
33 might seem quite an arbitrary number to show, but every one of them has scored over 250 points and they deserve the recognition. There are 1,261 players, including of course my own and I know Paul Reynolds’ favourite the multi talented and multi club member, Player Unregistered. However, the top 33 do represent the top two and a half percent and even in an Olympic 100m race, 37 percent get to stand on the podium.
The numbers on the right in brackets are the players’ rankings in terms of points scored per game. There is only one player in the leading group above who is also in the top 10 for points per game, Ross MacMahon [Leinster].
The top of the points per game category are players who have shone in their one appearance to date. Five of the top 6 who have all scored more than 150 points have registered centuries in their first at bat. I can only hope that plenty of pre-season training went into that, for the thought that someone can just pick up a bat and score a ton makes me very envious. Although I do have to add I’m not one for plenty of training either. Top of the pile is K. Chaudrey [Wicklow] who scored 218 points with an innings of 128 as well as 3/14. Second place is currently occupied by J. Tasmin-Jones [Dublin University] whose 104 plus 3 wickets and a catch sees him just 14 points in arrears. Third place is I. Mohammed [R&SPU] whose 190 points is the return for an innings of 160. The name R. Meraj [Laois] will be familiar to regular readers. Still obviously a great influence he is in fourth place with 179 points.
David Poff has burst onto the scene quickly with 170 points coming as a result of his 7/47 and a catch. He is the only player of this group not to have scored a ton. In fact David didn’t even get the chance to wield the willow in his game. Finally M. Farooq [Balbriggan] has 155 points.
David, as well as a number of other rising Leinster stars got a good mention on the new podcast fir Irish cricket. Andrew “Lenny” Leonard and Mark Robinson run the rule over events and games throughout the island and for their very first special guest had Kevin O’Brien. A fine start for the podcast and well worth the listen.
Moving back to more conventional categories, the leading run scorer in the province (may not contain all relevant results and figures – any interpretation herein is the authors and very often the author’s alone) is Adrian Harper [Balbriggan] with 263. Only two other players have topped 200 runs. S. Tariq [Castleknock] with 204 and P. Peethambaran [Sandyford] with 201.
Fourteen players are averaging over 100 with the bat, including 5 who have yet to register a century. Ross MacMahon is the leader of the “Highest run scorer without having been dismissed and therefore can’t mathematically have an average” category with 168 runs. T. Anders also has over 100 runs without dismissal. For those players that have suffered the slow long walk back to the pavilion, B. Smyth [North County] has the highest average with 172.00. Adrian Harper [Balbriggan] is the only player with two centuries, whilst another sixteen players have raised their bats at 100. B. Smyth [North County] and S. Tariq [Castleknock] have both added a 50 to their 100’s, so both seem in decent knick. However, P. Peethambaran [Sandyford] has 3 fifties in four innings and leads that category.
Leading wicket taker is P. Rodgers [Leinster] with 15. S. Mathews [Cabinteely] with 12 leads the chase and also has a 6/26 to his name. J. Singh [Castleknock], A. Singh [North Kildare], H. Oppermann [Clontarf], J. Murphy [Rush], A. Verma [Lucan] and J. Kumar [Lucan] all have 11 wickets to date.
P. Rodgers [Leinster] is also the hardest working bowler having sent down 54 overs. Next on the list are H. Shivmangal [Knockharley] and J. Kumar [Lucan] with 35 apiece.
C. Siddell’s [Malahide] 7/11 remains the season’s best analysis, although David Poff [Pembroke] has also taken seven in an innings.
M Mathai is the only player to have taken a wicket without conceding a run, but therefore has no average. Lowest average belongs to D. O’Halloran [Malahide] whose three wickets cost one run, and A. Seth [Merrion] also has three wickets, but having conceded twice as many runs sees his average up at 0.67.
Catches are inevitably lead by wicket keepers and to this end Paul Reynolds have supplied a list of people who have kept wicket. However this does mean if you keep for one game you are forever (or at least this season) to be considered a keeper. So the leader in catches is Sean Rooney [North County] with 9 and also has a stumping. S. Katta [Laois], Robert Forrest [Clontarf] and C. Diviney [R&SPU] each have 6 catches, although S. Katta also has a stumping. S. Murphy has 2 stumpings to add to his 5 catches, whilst matching his tally of catches are P. Peethambaran [Sandyford], M. Hippolitus [Dundrum], Robbie Garth [YMCA], B. Boland [Clontarf], S. Murphy [YMCA] and T. Bruton [Knockharley].
The highest number of games played stands at 6. Whilst 451 players have only managed one appearance, a total of 1,261 players have played cricket this season.
I was heartened by the responses suggesting which players and which parents might be keeping a close eye on the statistics as reported last week. Any feedback received gratefully.