Fantasy League - better late than never?

A recent break from the figures was most welcome and taken full advantage of over the last couple of weeks. However, now all is refreshed and ready once more to enter the fray, both on and off the pitch.

The Fixture-Makers in the Leinster league clubs have the power to make or break a person’s entire season. One of their meanest tricks is the double-header, which is a game on Saturday and another on Sunday. The Saturday game is relished, is attacked with gusto, whether home or away. Cricket is played; games are won, or lost. Troops retreat to the safety of their own club and celebrate or lick their wounds over the soothing pints that flow so easily until the late hours. Vital game changing moments are discussed and memories dredged for yarns.

The Sunday game on the other hand is to be feared. Stiff from age, finding it difficult to put on socks, let alone turn the arm over. Team-mates unrecognisable from yesterday’s dressing room. Half the team has changed as DIY stores and family dinners snaffle player after player, willingly or not. The other half are just unrecognisable from the neatly turned out, clean and smart players who appeared on Saturday. The average age drops from the low 40’s to a more energetic, but less experienced high teens. The dressing room can not be described as fresh. Last night’s Lynx cloud still clings to the walls. Cricket gear is no longer pristine, but marked with the scars of yesterday’s battle. That slide to save one run covers the knee, the thigh shows traces of red, from keeping the shine for the fast bowlers, who today will rely on guile and movement rather than Saturday’s pace (or so they will tell you). The opposition who are playing their first game of the weekend are enthusiastic and noisy. Our team is very quiet and pensive. This is unlikely to go well. This also ignores the risk of injury each player is at, all weekend. If found in the bar at the wrong time, he could find himself subbed up a team. The position of Fixture-Maker is a god-like position. These men should be feted, cherished and adored by all players. However it comes with no manual and certainly no positive feedback from players.

One can imagine the end of season thank you card from a captain to his Fixture-Maker.

“Dear John,

Thank you for ensuring we didn’t have our first match until the June Bank Holiday weekend. It certainly made sense to our players who attended 3 months of winter indoor nets, but hadn’t picked up a bat since early April. They say it feels like a two season summer. One season preparing then spring arrives before then starting again in late May.

I did appreciate your efforts to ensure we hit the ground running by arranging a game on each and every day of the Bank Holiday. This may have backfired a little when three games in a row ensured I had to find 24 different players to represent the Club. This already difficult task, seeing as the Club only has 17 registered players, was further made more troublesome by the games being scheduled away and with a total mileage of 640 kms. Yes I know its good to get them out of the way early in the season, but come on. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been just the one Bank Holiday, but you managed to cover nine of fourteen league games in the May, June and August Bank Holidays, leaving us just 5 league games, one cup game (sorry about that) and one evening T20 game for the other 19 weekends of the Leinster season.

I’d also like to thank you for the opportunity to take the entire month of July off from league commitments. Having lost in the first round of each and every cup, despite the wonderful efforts of our Under 11 players in the Cup where 10 of them and I managed to lose within 19 overs, there is now no possibility of cricket for the month. I do look forward to contacting my team in August to find 7 on holidays with their parents, 12 have switched to tag rugby because it’s mixed and they think they look good in lycra (no-one does), 4 have returned to their native lands and 1 has announced his retirement prematurely as he thought the season was over. It was a good party though and if he plays again we do get his gift back.

So thanks for all of your assistance this season with the Fixtures and re-fixes. Re-fixes, ah yes, there again you have excelled yourself. That T20 you arranged starting at 6:00 in St. Columba’s on the same day as Latitude (which I now understand was a music festival held in Marley Park) was another joy and a memory that shall remain forever seared upon my brain. The laugh the Gardaí at the roadblock gave me when I requested passage to attend a cricket match was quite priceless, at least it is now I am safely miles away writing this and no longer trying to capture it for Twitter and Facebook and losing my iPhone (invoice attached for insurance claim) in the process.

However, please know you have my fullest support and I shall again be canvassing and voting for your re-appointment at the end of season Annual General Meeting as the Club Fixture-Maker, because I fully realise that if you didn’t do it, I might have to….

Yours….”

Anyway, it can be seen that double-headers are not nice, any more, but they do give two chances for fantasy points and a chance to re-climb the table.

So far this season in Leinster league and cup cricket

1,854 players,

458,566 fantasy points scored,

853 run outs,

172 stumpings,

3,666 catches,

7,471 wickets taken by bowlers,

87 five or more wickets taken in an innings,

35,695 overs bowled

573 fifties scored

71 centuries

145,496 runs scored.

The overall point scoring table – Top 30

Top run scorers with average