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  1. Home
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  3. Review of the season - RSA Division 3
3rd December 2012 by Paul Reynolds

Review of the season - RSA Division 3

How the league was won - at the same time as turning into a nightmare for others - All of this season's reviews have been broken down into sections looking at those at the top of each division, and those at the bottom.


For Division 3, this seems inappropriate and perhaps a little unfair to those involved. Division 3 was quite simple, the tightest league imaginable, with many teams thinking they were about to be promoted, before realising they may be relegated - or vice versa.


Rain ruined the division in many respects, with 11 of the 56 matches being lost to the weather. These matches were spread fairly evenly though, and only Pembroke's ground in Sydney Parade had more than two matches rained off. 


As you may expect, the season can be characterised by all the teams beating each other, and the last two weeks of the season tell the story of delight and despair quite well.


Civil Service were the first to know their fate, purely due to competing their fixtures first. They were always chasing the pack, but a loss over YMCA on September1st put the nail in the coffin. Victory over Clontarf on September 9th was academic, and put an end to Clontarf's title ambitions at the same time.


The Hills meanwhile were in all sorts of trouble, and were left with a tricky last two matches against table toppers Merrion to salvage their season. Remarkably, they won twice, with Wasim Akhtar to the fore with the ball. Those two wins had a major impact on Clontarf's season - as can be seen below.


Remarkably though, those title ambitions quickly changed to feelings of dread. A Danny Barclay inspired 154 run defeat by Pembroke on September 15th meant that Clontarf had gone from top two to bottom two in a couple of matches.


Pembroke 2 and YMCA 2 didn't really have a chance of promotion in the last fortnght of the season, which left Balbriggan 1, North County 2 and Merrion 2 to fight it out (along with Clontarf 2!). Merrion had done the hard work, and were virtually over the line. Two end of season losses to The Hills proved to not matter, and Merrion 2 will take their place in Division 2 for the first time in 2013, after grabbing the runners up spot.


That just left the title to be decided. Balbriggan missed out on promotion by the narrowest of margins in 2011, and it was looking desperate again. A narrow defeat to Civil Service on August 26th, along with two rained off matches meant that Balbriggan were going to have to beat arch rivals The Hills 2 in order to gain promotion - with an outside chance of the league. Chasing 244 to win, it looked all over at 159-8. Barry Archer provided a small chink of light though, and found an able partner in Ali Qasim. The pair added 85 for the 9th wicket, inching over the line with 15 balls to spare.

Promotion was confirmed there and then, and after Merrion lost twice the following weekend, the Division 3 title was confirmed for Balbriggan.


What a season.  


Heroes with the willow - The close nature of Division 3 is emphasized by the individual performances. Fifteen players passed 200 runs, but only five did it with an average over 30, and four of them belonged to teams who finished in the bottom half of the table.


Two players stood out though. Barry Archer's performances continue to reflect the qualities of a player who should have played more than he did for Ireland, and his contribution to Balbriggan's promotion was highlighted previously. He scored 283 at 40.43. Head and shoulders above everyone else though was Vijay Gopal - 353 runs at 58.83, and still Clontarf went down.

Hell for leather - To go with Vijay Gopal's dominance of the batting, Paul Ryan of Clontarf finished to of the bowling with 22 wickets at 14.64. Five others took 20 wickets which across the divisions has been the measure of an excellent season with the ball. For North County to have two (Terry Richardson and Asif Ali) shows that their batting should have been better. 


Sum Wijesundara picked up the Oulton Cup for bowling though - his six wickets in the Cup took him above the other contenders. In the league, Sum had 21 at 16.14.


Days to remember -  A bittersweet acheivement for a player and club that have already been mentioned several times. Clontarf visited North County in August, and after losing the toss, watches as North County ran up 291-8 from 50 overs.


In reply Clontarf struggled, and at 25-3 Vijay Gopal came to the crease. Whilst his colleagues continued to struggle, Gopal found the going easy. Clontarf  kept losing wickets (slipping to 93-7), but our hero kept hitting boundaries. David Delany hung around, scoring 18 runs (the second highest score), the pair doubling the score to 186.


Gopal was last man out, for 154 from 230. That equates to 66.96% of the Clontarf total. In an international context, Viv Richards' 189* against England in 1984 is the highest - Gopal would have been next (should Clontarf 2 vs North County 2 ever be given full ODI status)

Stat you may have missed -  Given all the rain, there were still four teams who played at least 12 matches - Merrion, The Hills, North County and YMCA. However only four players played 12 games all season. Step forward Malcom Byrne and Mick Dwyer of The Hills and Alan Parkinson and Sum Wijesundara of Merrion

 

Batting (Qualification 100 runs)

#NameClubInnNO50s100sHSAvgRuns
1V GopalTarf712115458.83353
2John AndrewsNC11-3-6527.64304
3C HosfordYMCA8-4-8537.62301
4Malcolm ByrneHills12-2-6824.17290
5B ArcherBalb9211114*40.43283
6Patrick ByrneHills8-2-9134.12273
7S SaharanMerr912-5833.12265
8M SinghNC9-2-8529.11262
9M SafeenCivil11-1-5323.64260
10T RichardsonNC111--4725.6256
11M SiddiqueCivil11-2-9522.91252
12A RazaHills10-1-7623.6236
13L TuckerPemb9-2-6323.78214
14G SeghalCivil9-2-7323207
15A ParkinsonMerr12---3517.08205
16D RooneyBalb92--3726.86188
17C O'DonoghueMerr11-1-5316.27179
18Joseph ClintonHills811-8625.29177
19D BarclayPemb61-1111*34.6173
20J WaliaPemb82--4628.67172
21T WijesunderaMerr112--4118.67168
22N AkhterHills1011-5118.44166
23S O'ConnorNC6-1-7827.17163
24S AnwarBalb511-5840.75163
25C AllwrightMerr11---3714.73162
26J TectorYMCA7-1-5022.86160
27J AltafTarf9---4017.56158
28M Fayyaz SayyamCivil9-1-7316.89152
29G BaughPemb511-8336.25145
30S McDonnellPemb9-1-5016.11145
31N McGovern (Jnr)NC81--2920.29142
32R WatkinsMerr911-5417.38139
33R GarthYMCA5-1-5627.2136
34J FitzgeraldYMCA731-66*32.5130
35Adrian HarperBalb7-1-5718.29128
36N JoshiCivil911-7715.62125
37D CaseyNC3-1-6541.33124
38N BrownMerr9---4613.67123
39P GallagherPemb84--27*30.5122
40G RussellBalb8-1-5114.38115
41P RyanTarf91--32*13.88111
42D StreekYMCA91--3213.75110
43K ClarkeNC74--38*35.67107
44Y KashyapHills411-50*34.67104
45A BaileyYMCA81--4314.86104
46M HussainCivil4-1-6125.75103

 

Bowling (Qualification - 100 wickets)

 

#NameClubOversMaidsRunsBBowlEconAvgWkts
1P RyanTarf9114322 5-203.5414.6422
2T RichardsonNC829381 6-294.6517.3222
3T WijesunderaMerr92.119339 5-323.6816.1421
4A AliNC56.37260 5-334.61320
5W AkhtarHills808317 4-333.9615.8520
6G SeghalCivil51.46214 5-224.1411.2619
7A QasimBalb7810268 4-233.4414.1119
8Dwayne HarperBalb69.15277 3-17416.2917
9R ChawlaYMCA78.513254 5-253.2215.8816
10E WhaleyPemb518204 4-18412.7516
11H BalbirniePemb58.34236 5-94.0314.7516
12M SiddiqueCivil91.515309 3-263.3620.615
13M CollierTarf31.2-154 6-424.911114
14Y KashyapHills25.4284 4-173.276.4613
15U JehangirYMCA7413260 4-233.512013
16S SaharanMerr55.39143 4-182.581113
17M SinghNC76.28315 4-294.1324.2313
18M KhanCivil54.38204 3-213.741712
19Matt DwyerHills7511251 3-313.3522.8211
20Albert HarperBalb44.15167 3-213.7815.1811
21J HarteYMCA38.27151 4-363.9413.7311
22P FlanaganYMCA568182 5-323.2516.5511
23AU ChathaCivil472187 5-503.9818.710
24L HofmyerPemb574263 2-114.6126.310
25N McGovern (Jnr)NC483215 4-354.4821.510


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