The best and worst of ...... Balbriggan

Following on from this week's publication of the 2016 Cricket Leinster All Ireland rankings, this is the first of a series of articles looking at each club in Leinster and specifically when were the highs and lows of each club; when were the cork popping nights, and those days when there was silence in the dresssing room?

The rankings look to assign a score to each club's first team, based on their results; the quality of their oppoonents, and also taking in to account how long ago each result was. These articles are going to pinpoint a moment in time that each club was at its "best" and "worst". However, in reality that point in time is when that team had put together a long run of results making it the best over a period.

So no complaints please, when a team shorn of its professional and four star players who have gone on a stag weekend is crowned as the best team of all time - it may be the work that they have put in previously that enables the honour to be bestowed!

As we are working through Leinster clubs alphabetically, we start with Balbriggan. The Fingal club's results weren't included in these rankings until their promotion to Division 2 in 2012/13, and therefore the period we are looking over is much smaller than the sixteen year history of these rankings.

Balbriggan's progress over the last four seasons can be seen on the graph below, with the 2016 being far and away their best year - after a 2015 that saw a very big drop, and it is those two seasons that we will be concentrating on.

Balbriggan's low - rating 65.579 - ranking 37th - date August 17 2015 - after 119 run loss to Terenure

Unusually for a club, (even one that has only been in these rankings for four seasons), the gap between Balbriggan's low and high was less than a year. At the end of the 2015 season, Balbriggan travelled to Terenure for a Division 2 match, and were immediately put to the sword by a 209 run stand for the second wicket by Ben Speake (135) and Kenny MacDonald (114). Mo Farrukh came out of the carnage well with 0-32 from ten overs, but no one else went at less than five an over as Terenure ammassed 341-6. In response Balbiggan weren't too bad, with  Farrukh completing a fine all round game with 135, as Balbriggan lost by "only" 119 runs.

The scorecard can be seen at http://www.cricketleinster.ie/results/view/-terenure-2015-08-15-123000 and reveals a Balbriggan team that looks decent on paper! However, within a year, only six of that team would remain, as Balbriggan's fortunes improved throughout the 2016 season. 

The 2015 season finished with Balbriggan in fourth place in Division 2.

Balbriggan's high - rating 81.929 - ranking - 25th - date July 3 2016 - after 2 run win over North Kildare

321 days later Balbriggan's fortunes were very much on the up. Five players had disappeared from the low point of the previous season, with Warsop, Lange, Waqar Hussain, van Vollenhoven and Nulty all coming in. The match itself was a low scoring affair, with Balbriggan sneaking home by 2 runs, but came on the back of a fine run. Malahide, Terenure and Rush had all been beaten in the league, and Ballaghaderreen had been conquered in the first round of the National Cup. Shammi Ahmed was the architect of the victory, scoring an 89 ball 86. Duane Harper supported with 61* as Balbriggan totalled 221 all out - not too bad a total in North Kildare. Paul Ryan dominated the North Kildare response with 70, and with nearly all the rest of the team chipping in, the home side got so close, before agonisingly falling two runs short as time ran out. 

The rest of the season didn't quite reach those heights, and Balbriggan only won two of the next eight games, finishing fourth in Division 2 again. But it looks an odds on bet that the high point will be breached in 2017.