Let’s start with a huge congratulations to the Irish team, who have in our absence from the weekly column, qualified for the Cricket World Cup in Australia in 2015. A win and a tie with The Netherlands was enough to see us win the World Cricket League and avoid the playoffs for qualification.
Paul Reynolds has now returned from his well-deserved, if ill-timed holidays and the fantasy table resumes. Paul does an amazing, but largely ignored amount of work on behalf of the cricketleinster website, the Open Competitions Committee and indeed all of us. Paul compiles the result cards, let’s us know when we are deficient, sorts out the Player Unregistered and provides the figures on which this column is based. Paul is one of a few people within cricket in Leinster, indeed Ireland, who allows us to get on with playing and yet keeps us all updated on games, tables, permutations and is one of our unsung heroes. Thank you Paul, and indeed, thank you Michael Sharp and all of these silent, working in the background, people, without whom our cricket would stumble and fall.
Now as I wipe this brown from my nose, let us get on with the fantasy table and the various leaders.
Simon Rice [Greystones] with 1,526 points continues to lead the overall table with a 92 point lead over Pat Collins [R&SPU]. Pat is having an exceptional season with 724 runs in Division One and as discussed in other articles could be looking at over 1,000 runs for the season.
In third place is the youngest male player of the Pembroke Tucker clan, Diarmaid, who with 1,280 points, leads both his brothers Fiachra [9th place with 1,116 points] and Lorcan [261st place with 516 points and just as importantly his father Barry [1,162nd place with 134 points]. Is there a higher ranked family across two generations in Leinster cricket?
The rest of the top 10 are: R. Gallagher [Malahide: 1,265 points], L. Jansen [Rush: 1,260 pts], E. Richardson [North County: 1,161], Jeremy Dunleavy [Pembroke: 1,141], I. Smillie [Clontarf: 1,128], the aforementioned Fiachra and A Yadav [Adamstown: 1,086].
A further 5 players have managed to cross the 1,000 points barrier and the race to the finish begins now.
Simon Rice can point to the amount of cricket he is playing as a large factor in his overall lead. 25 games so far, 2 ahead of J. Kerrison [Leinster] and 3 ahead of Diarmaid Tucker [Pembroke]. Eight players have played over 20 games and include two Tuckers. Orla and Barry will be greatly relieved when their boys learn how to drive to games, practices, underage games, representative games. Still, it does keep them off the streets. M. Jacob [Swords] is the man who has taken his bat to the middle most often, twenty times.
Leading run scorer L. Jansen [740 runs @ 74.00] is closely chased by Pat Collins [724 @ 90.50], whilst an additional eight players have scored over 500 runs to date.
Another 11 players have over 400 runs, whilst 66 players have over 300 runs.
Pat Collins does lead the total centuries category with 4, followed unsurprisingly by L. Jansen with 3. C. McLoughlin [The Hills], M. Mughal [Laois], R. Forrest [Leinster], W. O’Neill [Mullingar] and Kenny Carroll [R&SPU] all have two. A further 76 players have reached the century landmark just the once.
E. Richardson [North County], K. Khan [R&SPU], S. Iqbal [Rush], Tom Fisher [Terenure Titans], H. Tanveer [Civil Service] and J. Altaf [Clontarf] have all managed five half centuries. 12 players have four, 25 have three, 115 have managed it twice and 270 once.
J. Quinlan [Merrion] leads the averages and one can only wonder how he has only played one game. 168 runs, an average of 168.00. It is the only average above 100. Next is Pat Collins with his 90.50 and in third is Colm Reilly [Balbriggan] with an average of 81.75 and 327 runs. 58 players average over 50.
A. Botha [Clontarf] has the highest individual score this season with 170. Behind him is J. Quinlan with 168 and H. Pike [Dublin University] with 168*
C. Doyle [Bagnalstown] has batted four times and is yet to be dismissed with total runs of 5 and a highest score of yes, 5 not out. Not quite the Ashton Agar of Leinster cricket. J. Bhore [Adamstown] has the highest batting average [63.00] without having scored a fifty or century.
Simon Rice is also the leading wicket taker in Leinster cricket with 45. He appears to in with a chance of making it to 100 wickets for the season which would be an amazing feat in these days of limited overs. Gone are the days of two bowlers toiling through 50 overs, thank God.
Simon is 12 ahead of Diarmaid Tucker [33], who in turn and no doubt to his delight, is three ahead of Fiachra Tucker and M. Singh [Greystones] who both have 30.
Another 48 players have taken twenty or more wickets and 258 have taken more than 10. In total, 1,186 players have taken a wicket or 58% of all players.
Adam Ellison [Rush] retains the best bowling analysis of 7/11. F. Khalid [Castleknock] is second with 7/19 and Pat Collins underlines his all-round talents with 7/33. 19 players have a six wicket haul and 73 players have a five-fer including Simon Rice’s 5/3.
Tim Monaghan [Wexford Wanderers] have bowled again, but has not been able to replicate the one ball one wicket spell from earlier in the season. Thus the new leader of bowling average is J. Gray [Dublin University] with 2 wickets for three runs and an average of 1.50. M. Sharma [Mullingar] and R. McGovern [YMCA] both have one wicket for 2 runs and an average of, well you can work that one out.
Six players have taken two five-fers. Simon Rice, A. Jacob [Swords], I. Mohammad [North Kildare], B. Adams [Phoenix], and two Sandyford men, P. Peethambaran and Anto Burke. 89 players have done so once.
Nic Pretorius [The Hills] has 18 catches and 4 stumpings. We can assume he holds the gloves. As does J. Kerrison [Leinster] with 15 and 4. R. Forrest [Clontarf] has 14 with no stumpings.
And as this is a catch up session, Leinster cricket has seen…
The longest surnames in Leinster cricket belong to D McDonough-Kinkade [YMCA] and G Purappanathaanam [Swords]. 16 characters each, to test scorers across the province. Whilst at the other extreme the shortest surnames have just the three characters. 31 players share that distinction including 11 named Ali, 3 named Fox, and 2 named Rye.
Enjoy the fine weather.