Division 14 stats
Leading all time run scorer (2011-2017) - Adam Gilbride (Clontarf) - 893 runs @ 23.50
Most runs in a Division 14 season - Colm Reilly (Balbriggan) - 510 runs (2013)
Highest score - Jack Quinlan - 168 - Merrion 7 vs Wicklow County 2 - Anglesea Road - 6 July 2013
Leading all time wicket taker (2011-2017) - Tomas Mount (Mullingar) - 64 wkts @ 11.09
Most wickets in a Division 14 season - Tomas Mount - 28 wkts (2013)
Best bowling - Peter Crosse - 8-9 - Wicklow County 2 vs Mullingar 3 - Aravon School - 3 Sept 2012
Most matches - Frank Lonergan (Wicklow County) - 53 - (2012-2016)
Highest team score - 321-5 - Merrion 7 vs Wicklow County 2 - Anglesea Road - 6 July 2013
Lowest team score - 21 all out - Sandyford 3 vs Mullingar 3 - St Finian's College - 29 Aug 2015
Team of the Year (in batting order) - Navneet Sengar (Clontarf), Gursharan Singh Lubana (Adamstown), Faisal Khalid (Laois), Paul Byrne (Railway Union, wicketkeeper) (Division 10, 2016), Vivekanand Swami (AIB), Sana Ullah (AIB), Harshit Bansal (AIB) (Division 16, 2016) , Khalid Ambroze (Gorey), Abdul Khan (Clontarf) (Division 15, 2016), Dharmanna Kori (AIB) Ashwani Tomar (AIB)
Review
Runs per wicket for all teams - 20.42 Runs per over for all teams - 4.56
AIB 1 - Champions - (Predicted 1st) - Batting Rating 125 - Bowling Rating 154 - RpO for 5.33 - RpO against 3.71
A pretty astonishing league season for AIB 1, who were promoted two divisions after winning Division 16 last season, and made Division 14 look even easier than Division 16 was in 2016. They won all 11 games they played, and in only three games could the final result be described as "close". Gorey 1 managed to only lose by 2 wickets on both occasions, and Clontarf 6 lost by 15 runs in their home match. Three matches were won by over 100 runs, and three further matches by 7 wickets. That is not to belittle AIB's season - they were 35-5 chasing 123 in the match in Gorey and 37-5 chasing 133 in the home match. Not surprisingly, the team dominated our Division 14 Team of the Year with five players, and seven players in total had fantastic seasons. Subrat Behera was probably the least celebrated of the seven, with a solid 134 runs at 22.33 and Bruce Leonard only played five matches, but led off the field and on with 123 runs at 41. The other five were pretty spectacular. Vivekanand Swami led the batting, scoring 327 runs at 46.71 - the next highest scorer only had 149 runs. The other four players had excellent all round seasons - Harshit Bansal picked up his second Team of the Yera accolade in scoring 126 runs (at 31.50) and 11 wickets (at 8.82); Dharmanna Kori scored 108 runs (at 36) and took 14 wickets (at 8.50); Ashwani Tomar hit 103 runs at 17.17 and took 15 wickets at 12.53 and finally Sana Ullah scored 149 at 37.25 and took 18 wickets at 9.06. An excellent season, and presumably the OCC will be looking to promote AIB multiple divisions again. And who is to say they won't rise to the challenge?
Adamstown 4 - Runners up - (Predicted 2nd) - Batting Rating 116 - Bowling Rating 90 - RpO for 5.30 - RpO against 4.74
104th is the highest Adamstown 4 have ever finished in the league, and they have now moved above Railway Union to be the 10th best 4th team in the province. There were no real surprises in Adamstown's successful season - after all we predicted that they would be runners-up, and they were. They lost twice to AIB (who didn't) and although there wasn't much between them and Gorey, they won home and away, so it is difficult to argue with their second place. The bowling was the weaker part of Adamstown's game, although that was especially the case in the first part of the season. Railway Union ran up 245-3 (although Adamstown still won) and then AIB hit 306-8 in a crushing win. Only two bowlers passed ten wickets, and neither at an average that was likely to lead to a league title - Sarath Babu Lepakshi took 12 at 17.08 and Khurram Mughal took 11 at 19.09. But the batting was a different story. Gursharan Singh Lubana's marvellous 158 against Railway Union in April led the way (and earned him a place in the Team of the Year), Mughal topped the run scoring charts with 296 at 29.6, and Mandeep Singh scored two 50s in his 219 at 21.9. Olag Sivanatham, Mayank Chauhan and Fahad Liaquat contributed with over 100 runs each, all adding up to a batting unit that was second only to AIB's.
Gorey 1 - 3rd - (Predicted 5th) - Batting Rating 92 - Bowling Rating 112 - RpO for 4.22 - RpO against 4.14
A brilliant first season for Gorey 1, who with a bit of luck could have grabbed second spot. They lost seven matches, but the margins reveal how their season could have been so much more successful - 2 wickets, 5 wickets, 2 runs, 27 runs, 1 wicket, 2 wickets and 22 runs. All those losing bonus points propelled them up the table, finishing above Clontarf and Laois who both had more wins. Khalid Ambroze was the first Gorey player to be named in one of our Teams of the Year, for his 17 wickets at 9.88. But Philip Leonard was massively unlucky - he dominated with the bat, scoring 332 runs at 41.5 along with 12 wickets at 20.17. Asnlem Diaz (11 wickets at 18) and Rashid Owais (10 at 28.9) also had productive seasons with the ball, and Umar Khan (280 runs at 28) and Atilla Shahlut (122 at 15.25) contributed with the bat. Khan scored the first 100 for the club (against Laois 3 in August) and him and Leonard scored all of the club's eight 50's during the season. Gorey will be favourites for their league next year.
Clontarf 6 - 4th - (Predicted 6th) - Batting Rating 95 - Bowling Rating 106 - RpO for 4.41 - RpO against 4.46
Worries about how Clontarf 6's 2017 season would progress were firmly based on them needing their best season in order to avoid relegation. They allayed any fears, winning four of their first six games, to be remove relegation from the equation by early July. If truth be told, they never looked like troubling the leaders, losing both games to Adamstown and AIB, with the highlight of the season probably being a 27 run win at home to Gorey, mainly thanks to Abdul Khan's 52. Khan and Navneet Sengar made the Team of the Year, and along with Naveen Bachani, the three dominated the season for Tarf. Sengar scored 291 at 58.2, including the team's only hundred, 111* at home to AIB in August, as well as taking 10 wickets at 16.90. Bachani "contributed" with the bat with 121 runs over the season at 15.12, and took 11 wickets at 18.82 - very much the type of player a team depends on. Khan added to his Division 15 Team of the Year title from last year, scoring 226 ruins at 45.20 and completed a memorable two years. Only Bill Coghlan has scored more runs for Clontarf, Abdul Khan's contribution being 1265 at 30.12.
Laois 3 - 5th - (Predicted 3rd) - Batting Rating 97 - Bowling Rating 98 - RpO for 4.45 - RpO against 4.74
There were a few worries around Laois after some uncertainty around player availability but Laois 3 did pretty well in a solid 5th - although that was very much the result of four consecutive wins in late July/early August. They finished three places below 2014 and 2016's 104th, so although it was at the bottom end of the team's performances over the last seven seasons, it wasn't too bad. There is a fairly interesting rule of thumb when looking at how the lower teams in clubs perform. If a 1st team is for example ranked as the 10th best in the province, you'd expect their 2nd string to be the 8th best 2nd team, their 3rd team the 6th best 3rd team and so on. It is very much a rule of thumb, but would indicate that Laois 3 should be around the 12th best 3rd team in the province, and playing in Division 12. So room to improve? Five players played in at least ten of the twelve league matches, and four of them contributed most to the team's position. Faisal Khalid was the only player on the Team of the Year with a strong 348 runs at 43.50 and 12 wickets at 18.58. Umer Akram was also good with bat and ball - 169 at 16.9 and 18 wickets at 18.89. Noman Raess was the third player to get 10 wickets or more - 11 wickets at 25.55 and 177 runs at 22.12. One other plauyer worthy of mention is Salman Shahid who scored 242 runs at 40.33 and scored one of two league 100s by the team this year. Both were in the batsman's paradise of Togher, with Khalid scoring 108* at home to Railway Union 5, and Shahid scoring 102 at home to Castleknock 3.
Castleknock 3 - 6th (Predicted 7th) - Batting Rating 96 - Bowling Rating 69 - RpO for 4.83 - RpO against 5.15
The same rule of thumb that decrees that Laois 3rd's should probably be playing a bit higher would suggest that Castleknock 3 are currently in just about the right place (at least until their 1st team moves higher up the leagues). Only in 2014 did the team finish higher than this year's 108th, and 6th place is in some respects a good return. The big problem was the bowling attack, which was ranked as the worst in Division 14. Not a single player took more than seven wickets in the season, and only twice in their nine games did Castleknock 3 manage to take more than 5 wickets (they bowled Clontarf out for 106 in May, and Railway Union out for 59 in April). The batting was only slightly below average, and although no one got to 200 league runs for the season, four did make it past 100. Balbir Singh came top with 174 at 24.86; Pardeep Singh had 172 at 21.50; next was Musa Shah with 160 at 26.67 and the fourth was Sajid Imran with 143 at 17.88.
Railway Union 5 - 7th (Predicted 4th) - Batting Rating 83 - Bowling Rating 78 - RpO for 3.59 - RpO against 5.14
A difficult year for Railway Union as a club, but hopefully they will have come out stronger on the other side. The 4th team was withdrawn just as the season started, and in order to make it easier for all concerned, the Division 14 team was to be known as Railway Union 5. Not surprisingly for a club that was trying to make do without a home ground for the year, the team didn't quite live up to its billing, although "Railway Union 5" did finish in the same league position (109th) as in 2016. It may be worth dwelling that in 2013, the 34th-44th best cricketers in Railway Union finished in 41st position - 68 places (approx 9 divisions) higher than their 2017 counterparts. On an individual level, Paul Byrne grabbed his second Team of the Year nomination, making this year's Division 14 team as wicketkeeper as well as scoring 152 runs at 13.82. Nick Jagoe was the only player to score more runs than Byrne, with a fine all round season. It was the fifth year in the last six that Jagoe had done the league double of 100 runs and 10 wickets (he missed out in 2016 with only 9 league wickets) - this year's return was 193 runs at 24.12 and 13 wickets at 17.92. Others with major contributions were Shashank Gopal (140 at 12.73), Tyron Kritzinger (probably a bit good at this level with 137 runs at 137, with a 129* top score), Graham Chisholm with 110 runs at 27.5, and Sanjay Mucharla with 10 wickets at 22.8. Going back one more to out rule of thumb, Railway Union's fourth string should be aiming for something like Division 10 or 11 next year - they should be able to compete at that level.
The full Division 14 batting averages can be found here, whilst the bowling averages are here