Division 14 stats
Leading all time run scorer (2011-2018) - Adam Gilbride (Clontarf) - 1034 runs @ 24.05
Most runs in a Division 14 season - Colm Reilly (Balbriggan) - 510 runs (2013)
Highest score - Salman Shahid (Laois) - 172* - Laois 3 vs Wexford Wanderers 2 - Wexford RFC - 9 Sept 2018
Leading all time wicket taker (2011-2018) - Tomas Mount (Mullingar) - 64 wkts @ 11.09
Most wickets in a Division 14 season - Tomas Mount (Mullingar) - 28 wkts (2013)
Best bowling - Peter Crosse (Wicklow County) - 8-9 - Wicklow County 3 vs Mullingar 3 - Avalon School - 3 September 2012
Highest team score - 321-5 - Merrion 7 vs Wicklow County 2 - Anglesea Road - 6 July 2013
Lowest team score - 21 all out - Sandyford 3 v Mullingar 3 - St Finian's College - 29 August 2015
Most Matches in Division 14 (2011-2018) - Adam Gilbride (Clontarf) - 59 (2011-2018)
A historic first Leinster league title for Gorey 1, as they ran up thirteen league wins on the trot, to win the league at a canter.
Cricket Leinster's new website will be launching in the spring, but until then all player stats for the last eight seasons can be found at https://www2.cricketstatz.com/ss/web.aspx?mode=104&club=4530&team=.
Team of the Year (listed in the order, five batsmen/one wicketkeeper/five bowlers)
Batsmen: Anslem Diaz (Gorey), Anjith Varghese (Wexford Wanderers), Umar Khan (Gorey), Avinish Gundagani (Tyrrelstown), Ramiz Sohail (Knockharley)
Wicketkeeper: Ross Norman (Gorey)
Bowlers: Nicholas Jagoe (Railway Union) (Div 5, 2011; Div 10, 2015; Div 11, 2011), Hadley Southall (Railway Union) (Div 10, 2016), Pradeep Hewanalagamage (Gorey), Naveen Bachari (Clontarf), Khalid Ambroze (Gorey) (Div 14, 2017) >
Review
Runs per wicket for all teams - 18.78 Runs per over for all teams - 4.41
Gorey 1 - Champions - (Pos in league - 106 (2017 - 105)) - Batting Rating 132 - Bowling Rating 140 - RpO for 4.83 - RpO against 3.51
A massively convincing first Cricket Leinster league title for Gorey 1, who won Division 14 by over 80 points. On the morning of April 15th, the club may not have been that confident, as they had just lost their first game of the season by 54 runs away to Tyrrelstown. But the team then strung together a very impressive 13 wins on the bounce, including a spell of eight matches across the height of the summer when they won by 8 wickets, 8 wickets, 8 wickets, 4 wickets, 154 runs, 4 wickets, 86 runs and 9 wickets. Perhaps not surprisingly such a dominant display led to the majority of our Team of the Year coming from Gorey. All parts of Gorey's game were pretty impressive. As they were chasing in most matches, there weren't any big totals (the highest was 211-4), but there was something of a grinding remorselessness about their bowling, as only Castleknock 3, Wexford Wanderers 2, Knockharley 3 and Railway Union 4 made more than 150 - and they all lost anyway. Leasing run scorer was Anslem Diaz who hit 405 runs at 57.86, closely followed by Umar Khan's 285 at 42.78. Ross Norman makes the Team of the Year with an impressive 22 dismissals. There were then an impressive six bowlers who took ten or more wickets - Khalid Ambroze's 22 at 10.05, Pradeep Hewanalagamage's 18 at 9.22, Umar Farooq with 18 at 12.28, Philip Leonard's 13 at 11.69, Anslem Diaz's 12 at 15.33 and finally Unar Khan with 10 at 13.50. One slight lowlight - Gorey actually finished lower in the league (106th) than their 105th in 2017.
Castleknock 3 - Runners up - (Pos in league - 107 (2017 - 108)) - Batting Rating 103 - Bowling Rating 110 - RpO for 4.45 - RpO against 4.30
A solid performance from Castleknock 3, who finished 107 the league structure, the sixth season in the row that they have finished between 107th and 110th. 2018 was their best finish since 2015. They moved up one place to the 19th best 3rd team in the province, overtaking Laois and Greystones (with DLR County moving ahead of them). There was never going to be any danger of catching Gorey (Castleknock had already lost three matches by the end of May), but from then on, their only losses were on their two away trips to Wexford - against Gorey and Wexford Wanderers. No players on our Team of the Year, but some decent performances none the less. The leading all rounder was undoubtedly Balbir Singh who scored 209 runs at 19 as well as taking 15 wickets at 13.73. Shafiq Rehamn also took 15 wickets (at 12.20), followed by Faran Khalid's 12 at 15.42 and Sanjeev Kumar's 11 at 19.28. The team's batting was slightly weaker than the bowling, but two more (as well as Balbir Singh) passed 200 runs. Shoik Ray scored 254 at 21.17, and Pardeep Singh scored 216 at 19.64.
Railway Union 4 - 3rd - (Pos in league - 108 (2017 - 109)) - Batting Rating 104 - Bowling Rating 123 - RpO for 4.45 - RpO against 4.30
Two Railway Union legends performed yet again to give Railway a bit of stability as they continue to rebuild. From six teams in 2015, this was the first year that the Park Avenue club have only entered four teams for a long time. But rumours for 2019 are positive, and the team's 108th place was pretty much what has become expected for Railway's "bottom" team. Nicholas Jagoe made his first Team of the Year since 2015, with 19 wickets at 9.47 (as well as 208 runs at 29.71, and he was ably supported by Hadley Southall, making his second Team of the Year performance with an incredible 26 wickets at 9. In a strong division for bowlers, Ashish Aswal was unlucky to not get representative honours taking 22 wickets at 13.59, Yaser Sheriff took 13 at 12.54 and Rahul Gomes took 10 at 11.80. Paul Byrne was the leading run scorer with 222 runs at 20.18 but has lost place in the Cricket Leinster record books as the player with most runs since 2011 without a century. That "honour" now belongs to Laois' Usama Raees with 3379 career runs at 20.48 with a highest scored 94 - against Railway Union.
Tyrrelstown 2 - 4th - (Pos in league - 109 (2017 - N/A)) - Batting Rating 96 - Bowling Rating 95 - RpO for 4.55 - RpO against 4.62
A really impressive debut season for Tyrrelstown 2, who finished one place higher than Tyrrelstown 1 did in their debut season in 2017. At 7-4 with three matches left in the season, the team would have been hoping for 10-4 which would have been good enough for a runners up spot. But three losses followed, and a they had to settle for a creditable fourth place. Avinash Gundagani was the star, making TotY with 483 runs at 37.15, making him the highest scorer in the division. Vam Majji was the only other player to pass 200 runs (272 at 24.73) and he also was the team's leading wicket taker with 18 wickets at 11.5. Other bowler's of note were Shreenath Iilger's 15 wickets at 14.8 and Abhay Choudhary's 12 at 15.17. With Tyrrelstown's new ground coming on stream for the 2019 season, the only way is up, with Greystones 2 and Wicklow County 2 the next second strings in their sights.
Wexford Wanderers 2 - 5th - (Pos in league - 110 (2017 - N/A)) - Batting Rating 95 - Bowling Rating 101 - RpO for 4.10 - RpO against 4.41
Another positive story, with cricket in Wexford continuing to go from strength to strength. Wexford Wanderers 2's last season in the league was in 2013, and this was a solid first season back. Only Gorey and Tyrrelstown won in fortress Wexford RFC, although Wexford's success on the road wasn't much better, only beating Knockharley on the road. The home games and away games were also split into the first and second half of the season, so with six away games played Wexford were in big trouble at 1-7, before the return to home pastures brought success in the second half of the season. Paul Wise was the player around which the team was built, scoring 325 runs at 32.5 and taking 19 wickets at 25. But it was Anjith Varghese who was the one Wexford player on the Team of the Year, scoring 308 runs at 44. There was plenty of other support in the bowling stakes - traditionally Wexford's strength. Leading wicket taker was Sami Jan with 14 wickets at 13.57, and Stefan Carty also took 11 wickets at 13.36.
Clontarf 6 - 6th (Pos in league - 111 (2017 - 106)) - Batting Rating 90 - Bowling Rating 97 - RpO for 4.58 - RpO against 4.41
A fall in league position of five places since last season for Clontarf 6, but against that 2017 was the best since 2013. The team's five wins were all in Dublin, which is not always a great stat, with four of the seven opponents being outside Dublin. Naveen Bachani had his best season since joing Clontarf in 2016, and was the team's only representative in the Team of the Year. He took more than twice as many wickets as the next Tarf player, taking 22 at 9.59. In the five matches the team won, he was instrumental in them all, taking 2-7, 2-22, 3-23, 2-22 and 2-7 again. Tariq Hussain was the only other bowler of note, with 11 wickets at 24. The batting was weaker, and unfortunately no one passed 200 runs, with Nachiket Talwalkar being the best with 180 at 25.71. Clontarf 6 remain the second best 6th team in the province, but will have Leinster snapping at their heels next year, and Adamstown not too far behind either.
Knockharley 3 - 7th (Pos in league - 112 (2017 - 111)) - Batting Rating 108 - Bowling Rating 82 - RpO for 4.19 - RpO against 4.78
Perhaps not the best season for Knockharley 3, who slipped to their lowest league spot since we started tracking positions in 2011. They fell to 112th, although it should be added that in each season the team have finished between 105th and 112th. 3-3 at the beginning of August, they fell away towards the end of the season to finish 4-10. It's difficult to look anywhere except the bowling attack. The batting was largely blameless - the second best in the division. Ramiz Sohail made the Team of the Year with 315 runs at 35 and Rahul Dambal hit 202 at 20.20. But opposition batsmen took a liking to the Knockharley bowling, with nine teams racking up more than 170. Ramiz completed a brilliant all round season with 15 wickets at 19.53. Not surprisingly the other wicket taking bowlers also had high averages - George Angel with 12 at 23.33 and Rahul Dambal with 10 at 24.5.
Laois 3 - 8th (Pos in league - 113 (2017 - 107)) - Batting Rating 80 - Bowling Rating 65 - RpO for 3.68 - RpO against 5.47
One to forget for Laois 3 who started the season well, but then didn't win on the pitch from June 3rd. Laois bowlers tolied, partly down to playing matches in the now defunct batting paradise of Togher (Knockharley scored 285-5 and Castleknock 267-6). But even on more helpful bowling wickets, the team struggled, with Wexford scoring 213-5 in Wexford RFC. 113th was the lowest position the team have finished, and was below the 108th that Laois 4 finished in 2013. Salman Shahid was the leading run scorer, but his 220 runs at 73.33 is slightly skewed by a marvellous 172* at home to Wexford September, the highest score ever recorded in Division 14. Sanjeev Singh was the leading wicket taker with 14 at 10.07 and Peter Bouclier took 11 at 17.
The full Division 14 batting averages can be found here, whilst the bowling averages are here