Division 4
Champions – North Kildare
League MVP – M. Siddique [Civil Service]
Our countdown of fantasy leagues within leagues continues with Division 4. This is the first league where the positions are decided on a points-won basis rather than the percentages used lower down. Champions North Kildare won 11 of their 14 games, lost only 2 and scored 265 points to win by 46 points over Civil Service in second and a further 2 points behind were R&SPU.
Pembroke’s four wins were enough to see them survive ahead of Mullingar with 3 wins and Clontarf with 2. Dundrum and Phoenix with 8 wins each were safely mid-table, neither challenging for the title, nor battling relegation.
The Fantasy point winner in this Division came from second placed Civil Service and the gentleman concerned also was the leading run scorer by a considerable margin. M. Siddique [Civil service] was 179 points clear of runner up W. O’Neill [Mullingar], but also scored 299 more runs than him or anyone else.
Such a margin is one of those things about a team game such as cricket. One player can be so far ahead, but as he plays for the first team of a club, how does he push himself further, or gain representative honours? Is his only option to join a club playing in a higher division, or does he try and carry his team into those higher leagues? I would not suggest that M. Siddique is carrying the Civil Service team nor is there any suggestion is being made that Civil Service are a one-man side, as they also occupy the third place in the points table as well as 12th and 15th. Perhaps the player is heavily involved in the administration of their club and irreplaceable in that regard. Perhaps they enjoy the company of their friends in their club and do not wish to move. Anto Coates, playing in Division 10 is another example of these cases. In not having seen M. Siddique bat no actual judgement about him in particular can be made and this point is not just about him. This is where the phrase "Any resemblance between the characters in this article and any persons, living or dead, is a miracle” should come in as it is not the intention to suggest M. Siddique is solely in such a position, but to use his statistics to illustrate a view. Do the Leinster selectors keep an eye on such players? However, is there a rich vein of players who are slipping below the radar due to the leagues they are performing in? Perhaps the Club itself is unable to move up through the leagues due to their facilities, playing and otherwise, that might not meet the criteria required for top level club cricket in Leinster. Is there a case for an old-fashioned ‘trial’ game to be held so that such players can demonstrate their talents for a wider audience? A Leinster (North) v Leinster (South) match to be played or in a show of how Leinster cricket is evolving, East versus West? It is not being said that M. Siddique is talented enough or not to displace the current inter-provincial players, but that he may not get the chance to. In the past this column has suggested an end of season game with players being invited to take part. Perhaps someone somewhere would offer to host such a game. Anyhow, back to this Division and the top ten point scorers were as follows.
214 players appeared in this team Division, with just 49 appearing just the once, including the Pembroke President. Did any other Club President play as an elevated a level?
Only one player played in the maximum possible 14 games, M. Safeen [Civil Service]. With one ‘no result’ in their records, A. Mathew, S. George, S. Kurian, V. Jacob and M Hippolitus [Dundrum]; M. Singh, I. Walshe and R. Neavyn [North Kildare]; V Nautiyal [Mullingar] and Barry Tucker [Pembroke] played in as many as they could.
As mentioned, M. Siddique topped the run scorers by an impressive 299 runs. And was the only batsman to score more than 500, 600 or 700 runs. The top five run scorers were:
Surprisingly M. Siddique scored but one century, but he did convert that one into a big one. W. O’Neill was the only player to score more than one century and scored both at his home ground of St. Finian’s College. 8 centuries were scored in Division 4 and in order of highest first they were:
M. Siddique [Civil Service] may have only scored one century but he did come close on a couple of occasions with scores of 92 & 90. Andrew Delany [Clontarf] came closest with 95 and R. Anders [Phoenix] also reached 92.
66 half centuries were recorded by 41 players, with 23 players made one half century, whilst M. Siddique made 5, 2 more than anyone else, and was top of the list:
The top 5 batting averages (with no qualifications, but innings shown in brackets) were led by S. Ullah [R&SPU] with two innings, one of 119* and one of 10 for an average of 129.00. The top five were:
With a cut off of 320 runs the table amends to:
There were 9 batsmen who technically have an average of infinity, having scored runs and not been dismissed at all. Every one of them only batted once. They are shown here with their runs: H. Southall [R&SPU] (17); U. Aslam [Civil Service (15); Shauna Kavanagh [Pembroke] (12); C. Cavanagh [Phoenix] (9); Josh Little [Pembroke] (9); E. Seby [R&SPU] (7); D. Dismore [Phoenix] (7); I. Smyth [Clontarf] (5) and; Justin Doherty [Pembroke] (4).
It was a tight run thing for the most wickets taken. First and second both play in The Park with just the duck pond between them. Jitendra Singh (aka J. Singh) [R&SPU] has benefitted from checking his figures and discovering he had been registered more than once and his figures had been attributed to both aliases. Having brought it to Paul Reynolds attention the error has now been rectified. The top 5 (and ties) wicket takers were:
If there was a bowler of the division award it would undoubtedly go to B. Adams [Phoenix] for his wickets tally and the remarkable average at which he captured them.
The top five (and ties) bowling averages without any qualification marks and with the number of wickets taken in brackets also were as follows:
With a minimum qualification mark of 16 wickets, B. Adams shoots rightfully to the top. To have made the first table with 31 wickets is astonishing and to top this one by such a margin is just as good, if not a better achievement.
In order of the best bowling analyses, the 11 players who took a five wicket haul were as follows, although as you would have thought B. Adams [Phoenix] has the most with three including the second best analysis of the season in this division. Equalling the amount of five wicket hauls was Naveed Khan [Civil Service] although without the same economy:
Fiachra Tucker [Pembroke] was also recognised at the Cricket Ireland Awards picking up the Junior Player of the Year after his Tournament MVP at the European U15 Championships this summer and also his performances for Pembroke’s First team in Division 1.
W. O’Neill [Mullingar] was the only bowler to have bowled more than 100 overs and the top five bowlers in terms of overs delivered were as follows.
It is not right to say that the player with the most catches has the safest hands. There is no way of knowing how many players put down, nor the difficulty of chances. So we rely on numbers. Another problem is ensuring that the catches are allocated to the right players before the scorecards are submitted. Players are urged to take a quick look at a book before leaving a ground to make sure they get credit where it is due.
Two players held ten catches each this season and with one of them being B. Adams [Phoenix] we can be pretty sure that he took them without the aid of gloves. The other player was R. Neavyn [North Kildare] who also had two stumpings. The top five (and ties) were as follows (players who also had a stumping are shown with an * although we do not know if they were regular keepers):
One name who is definitely a keeper is S. Kurian [Dundrum] who took 60% of all the stumpings in Division 4. The top 5 and ties are:
In terms of players used (including Player Unregistered), the league looks like this:
Disclaimer….As with all of these articles, the views expressed therein of those of the author and definitely do not represent those of the Leinster Cricket Union, the author’s club nor of anyone else deliberately. They might match your views, but if they do, it is more likely to be a co-incidence than anything else. They are to be considered merely the inconsequential ramblings of a fool. Any feedback or requests for individual, team, Club or all-encompassing statistics may be sent to craig@cricket.ie.