Division 15 stats
Leading all time run scorer (2011-2018) - Ian Smale (Greystones) - 512 runs @ 28.44
Most runs in a Division 15 season - Bilal Amam Rind Baloch (Mullingar) - 433 runs (2018)
Highest score - Vishnu Vardhan Reddy Yannam (Carlow) - 127 - Carlow 2 vs North Kildare 4 - St Patrick's College - 22 July 2017
Leading all time wicket taker (2011-2018) - Conor Mount (Mullingar) - 38 wkts @ 15.24
Most wickets in a Division 15 season - Conor Mount (Mullingar) - 25 wkts (2018)
Best bowling - Munir Khan (Civil Service) - 8-5 - Civil Service 4 vs Rush 4 - Civil Service - 28 June 2015
Highest team score - 317-7 - Tyrrelstown 1 vs Ringcommons 2 - Ringcommons - 7 May 2017
Lowest team score - 28 all out - Dundalk 2 v Clontarf 6 - Dromiskin - 31 May 2015
Most Matches in Division 15 (2011-2018) - Faisal Bashar (North Kildare) - 25 (2016-2018) and Conor Mount (Mullingar 25 (2016-2018)
Leinster 6 held off a strong challenge from new boys Finglas 1 to record their third league title. Full team reviews can be found below
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: Bilal Amam Rind Baloch (Mullingar), Ahsan Wijesinghe (Bagenalstown)Syam Mohan (Finglas), Sanjeev Kumar (Adamstown), Jobin Devassykutty (Finglas),
Wicketkeeper: Vaibhav Tiwari (Leinster, wicketkeeper)
Bowlers: Riju Varghese (Mullingar) (Div 15, 2017), Ravi Mehta (Adamstown) (Div 14, 2016), Ray Stapleton (Bagenalstown) (Div 14, 2015), Mark Gillen (North Kildare), Conor Mount (Mullingar)
Review
Runs per wicket for all teams - 17.78 Runs per over for all teams - 4.40
Leinster 6 - Champions - (Pos in league - 114 (2017 - 118)) - Batting Rating 152 - Bowling Rating 121 - RpO for 5.03 - RpO against 3.96
Leinster 6 won a convincing Division 15 title, in what was perhaps surprisingly only their third ever league triumph after previous wins in 2012 and 1978. It was an almost perfect season on the pitch, with the one loss being a one wicket defeat to Mullingar in July. Of their twelve matches, they batted first twice (winning one and losing one), and successfully chasing ten times. Remarkably, Leinster 6 used 38 players throughout the season - teams using that many players normally struggle. With so many players partaking, there were few players dominating - no one played more than nine matches, one batsman scored more than 200 runs and two took more than nine wickets. Make of that what you will. Vaibhav Tiwari was the one batsman with 205 runs at 41, and he was also the wicketkeeper with most dismissals in the league, making the Team of the Year. Top wicket taker was Peter Kingston with 12 wickets at 17.33, supported by Usman Malik with 10 at 15.30. So a real oddity - a dominant league performance with a cast of dozens.
Finglas 1 - Runners up - (Pos in league - 115 (2017 - N/A)) - Batting Rating 118 - Bowling Rating 102 - RpO for 5.08 - RpO against 4.08
A strong maiden league performance from Finglas 1. the club have done things the right way, with an established youth structure over many years playing out of Albert Park. Unfortunately that ground is not currently big enough for Open Comps cricket, so until then Finglas played the 2018 season mainly in Castleknock College. Many of their players joined from other clubs, as a massive part of Dublin finally had a cricket club to call its own. A run of seven wins out of eight matches across the height of the summer set up the title charge, with some string individual performances. Two players made the Division 15 Team of the Year, Syam Mohan and Jobin Devassykutty. Mohan scored 306 runs at 34, whilst Devassykutty chipped in with 225 runs at 32.14. Fawaz Madasseri had a fine all round season and scored 207 runs at 23, as well as 11 wickets 22.27. Leading wicket taker was Deepu Jose with 22 at 13.14, whilst Arun Nair took 15 wickets at 15.73. A decent first season, but greater challenges await.
Mullingar 3 - 3rd - (Pos in league - 116 (2017 - 115)) - Batting Rating 99 - Bowling Rating 119 - RpO for 4.29 - RpO against 4.10
After a night of watching the US Mid-Terms, it is too easy to lay the same positive/negative spin on Mullingar's season as it is the Democrat's performance. For "We took the back control of the House", read "We had three of the best players in the league" or "We were the only team to beat Leinster in the league". Against that, how about "Our position in the Senate is substantially worse, but we only lost seats where Trump won big in 2016" - or as Mullingar could say, "We finished one place lower in the league than last year, but that was only because Finglas entered the league for the first time.". So let's look at the positives. Conor Mount broke the record for most wickets taken in a Division 15 season, breaking Sairam Good Ayella's 22 for Tyrrelstown in 2017. Mount finished with an excellent 25 at 10.16, cementing a position on our Team of the Year. He was joined by all rounder Riju Varghese, who made our reporesentative Division 15 team for the second successive year. Varghese scored 202 runs at 16.83 and took 12 wickets at a very impressive 7.67. Finally Bilal Amam Rind Baloch scored 433 runs at 48.11 - the most runs in a Division 15 season - North Kildare's Shahid Khan hit the previous best of 353 in 2016. In top of that Baloch took 13 wickets at 14.23. There were also a few worthy mentions. Conor Kelly took 16 wickets at 15.44; Keith Kilduff took 15 at 18.27 (including 7-36 away to Carlow 2 in June) and Kyle Gavin scored 216 runs at 18.
Adamstown 5 - 4th - (Pos in league - 117 (2017 - 120)) - Batting Rating 103 - Bowling Rating 80 - RpO for 4.72 - RpO against 4.52
As we have seen already in our Division 16 preview, there are not too many lower teams who are moving up the leagues. Adamstown 5 bucked the trend this year, improving their 120th place in 2017 by three places. It was something of a disjointed season for Adamstown, only once did they win successive matches, and that was at the very start of the season. The season was the very personification of mid table mediocrity (although in fairness the mediocrity is bit harsh!). On June 11th, they were 4-1 and there most have been dreams of a title shot, but that was as good as it got. The well travelled Ravi Mehta picked up his second Team of the Year award (after making Division 14 in 2016) as he took 11 wickets at 8.18, and he was joined by Sanjeev Kumar who scored 272 runs at 34. The bowling was something of a problem - we have Adamstown ranked as the joint worst in the league, and nine times Adamstown were hit for more than 150. Varun Sharma took 11 at 20 and Shankar Gopalakrishnan 10 at 19.30.
Bagenalstown 3 - 5th - (Pos in league - 118 (2017 - 117)) - Batting Rating 103 - Bowling Rating 123 - RpO for 3.91 - RpO against 4.36
Bagenalstown 3 find themselves in a very similar position to Mullingar 3. A one place slip on their 2017 position, but not necessarily the end of the world. In fact on the pitch, we have Bagenalstown ranked as the second best team in the league, but a number of factors saw them finish back in 5th. The home match against Greystones wasn't played, and the end of season match in Leinster saw Bagenalstown unable to get a side. Once on the pitch, Bagenalstown were led by a couple of bowlers who were amongst the best in the league. Ahsan Wijesinghe played his first season in Leinster, and had a brilliant all round debut season with 275 runs at 34.38 and 21 wickets at 11.52. At the other end of the scale was Ray Stapleton, who definitely wasn't playing his first season in Leinster. Stapleton made his first Team of the Year since 2015, with 10 wickets at 9.8. A couple of other bowlers got in to double figures in the wickets column - Mat Baker took 13 at 15.31 and Sajjad Malik took 10 at 11.4.
Greystones 3 - 6th (Pos in league - 119 (2017 - 101)) - Batting Rating 83 - Bowling Rating 80 - RpO for 3.44 - RpO against 4.99
A bit of a struggle to give too many positives for Greystones 3's season. We have them ranked as the worst team in the division; their batting struggled, never scoring more than 165 all season; and others teams prospered against their bowling attack, with five scoring more than that 165. There was also more than a two division drop between their 2017 position and this year. But as is often the case at the lower levels of league cricket, it is not all about performance, and 30 players turned out for Greystones 3 over the season. Balachander Achari was the leading wicket taker with 13 wickets at 14.85, and Simon Coury took 10 wickets at 12.10. Ian Smale became the highest run scorer in Division 15 history (with 512 runs at 28.44), adding 171 runs to his career total (at 28.50)
North Kildare 4 - 7th (Pos in league - 120 (2017 - 112)) - Batting Rating 70 - Bowling Rating 97 - RpO for 3.93 - RpO against 4.76
North Kildare's travails on 2018 have been well documented, so there is not too much point in raking up the season again. It is worth noting that as well as struggling in Division 15, North Kildare 4's was in effect their 3rd team as the club's 2nd team withdrew from the league in June. Eleven games were played, with wins over Bagenalstown and Adamstown. Fourteen year old Mark Gillen was the undoubted star, taking 14 wickets at 10.14 to be named on our Team of the Year. He was joined by another fourteen year old, Vishal Venkatesan who took 13 wickets at 17.92. Leading run scorer was Kawsar Islam who scored 128 runs at 16. Our sympathies to all in North Kildare today, with the sad passing of club stalwart, and former Honorary Treasurer of Cricket Leinster, Gerry Fennell.
Carlow 2 - 8th (Pos in league - 121 (2017 - 114)) - Batting Rating 85 - Bowling Rating 86 - RpO for 4.77 - RpO against 4.61
Rated 6th on the pitch, Carlow's lowly position relates mainly to organisational issues off the pitch, resulting in three mid season walkovers that left the team in an unrecoverable position. There were three home wins (against Adamstown, Finglas and North Kildare) but they returned empty handed from their trips on the road. Only playing nine matches meant that opportunities for individual players were pretty slim. Only Sofiat Alam passed 200 runs with 214 at 23.78, whilst with the ball, Adnan Rauf led the way with 15 wickets at 17.20 and Mohammed Ismail took 10 at 20.7
The full Division 15 batting averages can be found here, whilst the bowling averages are here