Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics - Aafaq to Zubair

Lies Damn Lies and Statistics - Aafaq to Zubair and the 2079 other players in between.

Cricketers playing in Leinster come from all backgrounds and these days all nations and this is reflected in the diversity of the names that come to me from the OCC statistics database. Singh is now the most common surname with 38 players appearing on the list. Khan comes second with 27 players, but surprisingly (to me at least) is that third on the list is Byrne with 23. The rest of the most popular names are: 4^th, Kumar (21); 5^th, O’Neill (17); 6^th equal, Ahmed and Ali (14); 8^th, Murphy (13); 9^th, Ryan (12) and 10^th equal, Hussain and Kelly (10). Perhaps there should be a game between the Singhs and Khans. In fact there would be enough for 5 teams made up only of these surnames. P. Unregistered (21 clubs) was ignored for this exercise, but he has managed to play 39 games.

As to how many countries are represented in CricketLeinster, I have no way of telling, except if you tell me. I expect that there are players from all of the test playing nations, plus Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but who is our most exotic (note to self - remember to spell-check this before publication!!) player? Have we many from mainland Europe? Please let me know either by comment at the end of the article or by email at craig@cricket.ie.

Now we move onto the regular fantasy league table with Laois’ R Meraj still leading the way with 1513 points. His position is all the more impressive when you notice that he has played 14 games, whilst the next 6 in the list have played between 22 and 26 games. 26 games is an amazing amount of games considering the weather this season.

On a points per game though our overall leader drops to 8^th place with a still impressive 108 points per game (ppg). Leader on a ppg basis is S. Hughes of Knockharley with 156 points from his solitary game. I’m sure the Knockharley captains would have loved to see him available more than once. The players in second and third also have only appeared once, W. Eddershaw of Greystones (130 ppg) and P. Souter of Rush (120 ppg).

The rest of the “ppg” leaders are: 4^th, Kevin O’Brien (R&SPU) 5 games and 119.2 ppg; 5^th, F. O’Halloran (Terenure Titans) 1 game, 117 ppg; 6^th, S. Sutton (North Kildare) 1 game, 112 ppg; 7^th, S. Sharma (Clontarf) 9 games, 109.4 ppg and 8^th, R. Meraj (Laois) 14 games and 108 ppg.

34 players (out of 2081) have managed to play more than 20 games in CricketLeinster games thus far, with the ever-green John Andrews (North County) and D McDonough-Kinkade (YMCA) leading the way on 26.

Three players have now scored two centuries and it is no great surprise to see that it is R. Meraj (Laois) and two players from picturesque but petite Rush, L. Jansen and S. Iqbal.

John Andrews (North County) also leads the 50-makers with 7 and MT Raza (R&SPU) with 6 and Theo Lawson (Pembroke) with 5 follow close behind. In total, 346 players have made at least one half century.

35 players are averaging at least 50 and seven players have over 500 runs. R. Meraj (Laois) with 803 runs and John Andrews (North County) with 787 runs having the best chance of reaching 1,000 for the season.

On the other side of the game, the hardest worked bowler has to be R. Nair (Dundrum) who has bowled 178.2 overs. Second on this list is P. Flanagan (YMCA) with 142 overs. Ignoring the amazing H. Kazmi (Clontarf) who took a wicket with his first ball and hasn’t bowled since, the best strike rate appears to be E. Rankin (YMCA) who bowled ten balls and took three wickets.

Top wicket taker A. Navi (R&SPU) with 43 wickets is one ahead of S. Gallagher (Halverstown) and J. Toor (Adamstown). 9 players have 30 or more wickets.

R. Maybury (Clontarf) has the safest hands, holding 16 catches, also one ahead of Z. Scott (Leinster). 21 players have 10 or more so far. Highest number of catches without a stumping is M. Ellison (Malahide) with 13.

R. Maybury (Clontarf) also leads the stumpings with 9 tied with S. Kurian (Dundrum). 97 keepers have made a stumping.

Finally, for those of you who have managed to read this far, the overall fantasy listing is available from craig@cricket.ie, but here is the top 50.

* Starrings taken as per cricketleinster.ie 15 August. These starrings are operational and liable to change as the OCC requests the clubs to make changes due to availability issues. Unstarred means not appearing on the present starring list.