The process of registering individual players to compete in Open Competitions has facilitated the extraction of information about participation and performance of young players in adult competitions. At this point we have most information about the Open Competitions and over time it is hoped that this will prove an important contribution to the growth and development of the sport in the province and as an aid to clubs in benchmarking the performance of their own coaching structures. Finally, it is hoped that the release of more information about achievements on the field will be of interest to the players themselves, will encourage them to raise their standards and will serve as an acknowledgement of their effort and success.
The current figures bring together all forms of OC cricket i.e. leagues, cups and T20s. A more detailed league-by-league breakdown will follow over the coming days. In the first report the performance of all U19 players are combined. This will be followed by more detailed figures broken down by age-group.
Finally, every effort has been made to provide as accurate picture of how young cricketers are doing in adult competitions. The information is taken from the scorecards submitted by clubs. These are not always up to date and at present there are over 30 missing up to the cut off date for these figures of 14th July. If a player does not figure in the relevant tables it may simply be that there are scorecards missing. This will of course be corrected in time but it is another reason why it is important that clubs send in completed scorecards as soon as possible.
Once the scorecards are entered the data is matched with the records on youth players. This enables us to determine what age group the player should be included in. Unfortunately not all of the ‘dates of births’ provided are accurate. If there are any mistakes please send in corrections to cricketleinster@gmail.com
And so now to the figures.
With the advent of holidays and the end of state exams the number of youth players competing in Open Competitions has risen to just over 400. Youth players [up to U19] have taken part in an average of 6.6 matches so far this season. The most active participant is Diarmuid Tucker [Pembroke] who has played in 23 matches. Ali Kashif and Nathan Rooney [both North County] follow closely behind on 22 each. In all there are seven players that have turned out in 20 or more games.
Batting
Youth players have made 89 [50s] and 10 [100s]. The highest individual score is that of Gareth Delany [Leinster] who made 151 [for Leinster II in a Senior II Cup match against Mullingar on 1st June]. Sean Currie [Clontarf] is the only player to have scored two centuries. He also has the highest number of runs with 550 where he is joined on over 500 by club teammate Mark Collier. Fifty eight players have scored half-centuries.
The batting averages [300 runs min].
| Players | Age | Club | Matches | Innnings | Level | HS | 50s | 100s | Runs | Ave | |
| Currie | Sean | U15 | Clontarf | 11 | 11 | D5-D14 | 128 | 3 | 2 | 550 | 61.11 |
| Smyth | Brian | U17 | North County | 13 | 13 | D3-D5 | 114 | 3 | 1 | 423 | 60.43 |
| McGovern | Rory | U15 | YMCA CC | 10 | 9 | D4-D10 | 114 | 2 | 1 | 303 | 37.88 |
| Delany | Andrew | U17 | Clontarf | 18 | 15 | D3-D5 | 76 | 3 | 0 | 455 | 35.00 |
| Shivmangal | Harry | U17 | Knockharley | 16 | 16 | D6-D13 | 70 | 2 | 0 | 379 | 34.45 |
| O'Gorman | Conor | U15 | Leinster | 17 | 13 | D3-D5 | 89 | 3 | 0 | 329 | 32.90 |
| Murphy | Joshua | U19 | Rush Cricket Club | 16 | 14 | D6-D10 | 92 | 3 | 0 | 343 | 31.18 |
| Hand | Fionn | U17 | North County | 16 | 14 | D3-D5 | 104 | 2 | 1 | 402 | 30.92 |
| Delany | Gareth | U17 | Leinster | 14 | 13 | D2-D3 | 151 | 1 | 1 | 370 | 30.83 |
| Rasool | Omar | U17 | Laois | 15 | 13 | D7-D13 | 80 | 3 | 0 | 354 | 29.50 |
| Tector | Jack | U17 | YMCA CC | 16 | 14 | D1 | 62 | 3 | 0 | 347 | 26.69 |
| Collier | Mark | U19 | Clontarf | 21 | 21 | D1-D3 | 62 | 3 | 0 | 522 | 26.10 |
| Jones | Ruadhan | U19 | Terenure CC | 16 | 16 | D1-D5 | 63 | 2 | 0 | 312 | 26.00 |
| Rooney | Nathan | U17 | North County | 22 | 20 | D1-D3 | 79 | 3 | 0 | 428 | 23.78 |
| Gupta | Sanil | U15 | Pembroke | 20 | 18 | D2-D12 | 57 | 2 | 0 | 342 | 20.12 |
On the bowling front the most wickets have been taken by Fiachra Tucker [Pembroke] and Aviral Shukla [YMCA] with 27 each. They are followed by Harry Shivmangal [Knockharley] on 26. Seventeen players in total have taken 20 wickets or more with Nisar Hotac [Leinster] leading the table and the only player to have an average of less than 10 runs per wicket. The best individual bowling performance was that of David Poff [Pembroke] who took 7/47 [against Leinster in D2 on 5th May]. Four others got 6 wickets in a match, Fiachra Tucker, Aaron O’Neill [Terenure], Umar Sarfraz [Longford] and Joshua Murphy [Rush]. 12 players got a 5w haul in a single match.
The bowling averages [20 wickets min]
| Name | Age | Club | Matches | Level | Overs | BB | W | Ave | Econ | |
| Hotac | Nisar | U19 | Leinster | 7 | D8-D9 | 55.5 | 4-15 | 20 | 9.45 | 3.40 |
| O'Neill | Aaron | U15 | Terenure CC | 9 | D9 | 54.2 | 6-44 | 20 | 10.70 | 3.95 |
| Shivmangal | Harry | U17 | Knockharley | 16 | D6-D13 | 92.5 | 3-7 | 26 | 11.35 | 3.19 |
| Collier | Mark | U19 | Clontarf | 21 | D1-D3 | 53.1 | 4-16 | 21 | 12.00 | 4.75 |
| Murphy | Joshua | U19 | Rush CC | 16 | D6-D10 | 71.5 | 6-18 | 25 | 13.40 | 4.68 |
| Anders | Tom | U19 | Phoenix | 10 | D2 | 82.2 | 5-49 | 20 | 15.05 | 3.66 |
| Shukla | Aviral | U15 | YMCA CC | 15 | D4-D10 | 104.3 | 5-20 | 27 | 15.44 | 4.00 |
| O'Gorman | Conor | U15 | Leinster | 17 | D3-D5 | 72.5 | 4-15 | 21 | 15.86 | 4.59 |
| Nulty | Cian | U13 | Balbriggan | 14 | D7-D14 | 93 | 4-39 | 27 | 16.15 | 4.69 |
| Craig | Adam | U17 | Clontarf | 16 | D1-D3 | 85.3 | 5-27 | 25 | 16.84 | 4.93 |
| Mooney | Anthony | U15 | North County | 13 | D9-D11 | 86 | 4-39 | 23 | 17.13 | 4.58 |
| Delany | Gareth | U17 | Leinster | 14 | D2-D3 | 103 | 4-32 | 24 | 17.75 | 4.14 |
| Murphy | David | U17 | Pembroke | 15 | D1 - D2 | 108.5 | 4-31 | 21 | 18.14 | 3.51 |
| Tector | Harry | U15 | YMCA CC | 18 | D1-D4 | 97 | 4-44 | 23 | 19.17 | 4.55 |
| Tucker | Fiachra | U17 | Pembroke | 18 | D1-D2 | 122.1 | 6-47 | 27 | 22.22 | 4.91 |
| Ali | Kashif | U17 | North County | 22 | D1-D3 | 92.5 | 4-51 | 21 | 22.33 | 5.07 |
| Kavanagh | Andrew | U15 | The Hills CC | 15 | D3-D11 | 96 | 4-27 | 20 | 23.95 | 4.99 |
It is not always clear from the scorecards if catches taken are by wicket keepers or not. Sometimes keepers take catches in the field that are wrongly ascribed as a keeper’s catch. With these caveats the following table relates to wicket keepers [Min 11 victims].
| Players | Age | Club | Matches | C | S | T | |
| Murphy | Sam | U15 | YMCA | 16 | 18 | 5 | 23 |
| Currie | Colin | U17 | Clontarf | 14 | 15 | 2 | 17 |
| Tucker | Lorcan | U17 | Pembroke | 13 | 15 | 1 | 16 |
| Rooney | Sean | U17 | N County | 17 | 15 | 1 | 16 |
| Chester | Adam | U17 | Phoenix | 16 | 13 | 0 | 13 |
| Kerrison | Jack | U17 | Leinster | 21 | 13 | 0 | 13 |
| Rock | Neil | U13 | Rush | 10 | 10 | 2 | 12 |
| Fleming | Jack | U19 | N Kildare | 10 | 10 | 2 | 12 |
| Collier | Mark | U19 | Clontarf | 21 | 12 | 0 | 12 |
| Smyth | Brian | U17 | N County | 13 | 11 | 0 | 11 |
Finally, there are a few players that appear on more than one table. Harry Shivmangal qualifies for both the bowling and batting averages, as does Gareth Delany, Joshua Murphy and Conor O’Gorman. Brian Smyth and Mark Collier are including under batting and wicket keeping. We will produce a full MVP in due course.
If any club wants to get a full breakdown of the performance data for their players please contact the above e/mail address.