Division 8 - 2011 Season Review

Division 8 has thrown up some fairly odd end of season stats, for what on paper was a pretty straight forward (and dare I say it) boring league.

The title race was for a long time a two horse race between Pembroke 4 and Leinster 5. The crucial encounter was the August 20th match between the two sides, which even at that point was obviously the winner takes all encounter to decide the league. An Alan Godfrey ton helped Leinster to 216 but 40s from Jonathan McNulty, Lorcan Tucker and Joseph Doherty saw Pembroke home by three wickets.

Both sides only lost one match all season, but three abandoned matches for Leinster meant that their percentage was far lower thean Pembroke's. With Dublin University 2 and Ireland Women only playing their seven matches, and Clontarf only playing 10 if their 12 matches, it was by far the shortest of the divisions - 41 matches played as against the normal 56 for an eight team division.

At the other end of the table Ireland Women and Dublin University both struggled in their seven matches, meaning that the relegation places were never in doubt.

The individual performances throw up some oddities though. Balbriggan players top both batting and bowling, despite the team itself struggling. Raj Valson only played eight matches all season, didn't play for Balbriggan 1sts at all, but scored a fantastic 453 runs at 75.5. With Sean Malone also scoring 253 runs at 50.6 for Balbriggan, it's something of a surprise that Balbriggan didn't do better in the league.

The other batsmen in the top 3 were much more predictable when comparing it to the league table. Leinster's skipper, Bard Ovenden came third, with 325 at 36.11, and Gary Burrows of Pembroke, 325 runs at 32.09. These three were the only players to pass the 300 Division 8 run mark.

On top of Alan Godfrey's hundred mentioned above, there were a further six by other batsmen - some of which tell a significant tale. Three were against Balbriggan 2 (which may go some way to explaining their league position). Daniel Ashton only played three matches for Clontarf 4, but scored two centuries, 126 against Balbriggan on May 22nd, and 107 against Dublin University on May 11th. The other centuries that Balbriggan conceded were by Gary Baugh, (scoring 104* for Dublin University before finishing the season in Division 1 with Pembroke) and Jos O'Hallaron in that same match, a fascinating game that Dublin University won by 1 run.

The last two tons were Bard Ovenden, 109 for Leinster against Wicklow County, and Alan Harper, for Balbriggan against Leinster.

Surprisingly, the bowling was also led by a Balbriggan player. Ali Qasim took 29 wickets at 11.83 and managed to beat Faran Khan into second place - the Pembroke player who was the top wicket taker in all competitions combined. Susheel Kumar completed the top three, with 17 wickets at 14.88 for Leinster.

Only four players passed the 15 wickets mark though, so for completeness sake, the other one was Joseph Doherty who took 16 wickets for Pembroke as they powered their way to the league title.

This division was very much a batsman's league - no bowler took more than six wickets, and even then only three managed that feat. Max Ryan took 6-26 for Merrion against Dublin University on April 26 (but then only took another three wickets all season), Praveen Konety saved his best bowling of the year for his last match, 6-19 for Merrion against Pembroke on September 10th, and Badal Kumar tops the list with 6-13 for Leinster against Clontarf on July 13.