Bank Holiday Weekends (with apologies to Frankie Goes To Hollywood), what are they good for? Absolutely nothing …
Sydney Parade, like many other grounds throughout Leinster, was primed for an explosion of top quality cricket last weekend to sit back and enjoy.
Saturday meant a semi-final of the Bob Kerr RSA All-Ireland Cup between the young guns of Pembroke and the Leinster Senior Cup winning Clontarf. Persistent rain and moved covers meant that there was no chance of play and a hastily convened series of phone calls that morning to ‘adjust’ the competitions regulations between Cricket Ireland and the clubs involved in the Bob Kerr and the National Cup meant no bowl outs, but replays in cases of no play. The Pembroke lunch went ahead anyway, ah sure the bar was open and the food on it’s way, so play or not the day was celebrated, and it was great to see so many famous (and a few infamous) faces from both clubs in attendance.
Sunday was meant to be the Leinster Lightning’s chance to wrest back control of the Newstalk Inter-provincial T20 tournament from the North West Warriors and the Northern Knight. Sadly, once more the precipitation onto an already soaked ground meant not a ball was bowled and the T20 trophy headed north. Sydney Parade did on Monday see some cricket from Leinster Division 1 go ahead, but despite watching a most entertaining knock of 91 from John Mooney for North County, the batteries were dying rapidly and home became the preferred place to be. So not quite the cricket-fest it was planned to be, but an enjoyable weekend nevertheless.
Some cricket was played in the past week with 24 games being reported upon and this week’s column sees the introduction of a weekly fantasy table. Whether it remains or not depends on you the reader. Designed to give an opportunity for players to shine in a fantastic short term sort of way (comet-like if you will) and gain recognition, which might not be forthcoming on a season long table. However, when the cards were submitted and the figures tallied the same man topped not only the season long marathon, but also the Bank Holiday sprint. Reinhardt Strydom of Malahide has hit the top and is stretching away from his pursuers. He was the only player to gain more than 200 fantasy points in the past week and did so in just one game. He will surely feature strongly on The Slog Sweep podcast, available on iTunes (other podcast providers are also available), this week. Of course it does aid your chase for points when you score 155* and take a wicket as well. Congratulations on a fine week that has really put it up to the rest. Will he be caught before the season’s end or has he made his break and will power onwards and upwards.
Whilst only one player topped 200 points, a further 33 gained a century of points this week. 458 players played, but only one player turned out three times and batted three times, J. Meier. J. Meier recently picked up the MotM Award in the Tillian Cup Final in which YMCA defeated Clontarf, although Clontarf had their revenge this weekend when they defeated YMCA to collect the Senior 2 Cup. Unsurprisingly the other two players to play thrice in the past week were also members of YMCA, R. Chawla and P. Flanagan. 391 batters batted and 258 bowlers bowled. 3 centuries and 19 fifties were in the 6,286 runs scored and there were 7 five wicket hauls amongst the 326 wickets to fall to bowlers. 176 catches taken and 2 stumpings snared.
Warning: Clubs names as reported here are undergoing some changes. CCCC is Cork County and CSCC Civil Service. Whilst not quite reaching the initials of some of the clubs up north, they are a lot easier to type.
The weekly fantasy table – overall.
In terms of runs scored this week it is little surprise that Reinhardt Styrdom tops this table too. His 155* means he is one of four players to reach 100 runs, although only three scored centuries. Reinhardt will definitely be a contender for The Slog Sweep’s performance of the week on Thursday.
Best bowling performance of the week was 7/29 taken by Pembroke’s Jack Balbirnie on Monday in just 8 overs versus North County in Division 1. Jack must be a certainty for team of the week on The Slog Sweep this week. However, Jack is joined on 7 wickets for the week by YMCA’s R. Chawla who bowled 19 overs in his three games.
And now its time to run through the major categories and see who the season long leaders are this week. Despite this weekends deluge, (and to think our government is going to start charging us for water that falls from the skies all too readily), plenty of cricket has been played thus far. The start may have been a little soggy, but the exam season brought some decent days and the recent wave of excellent weather meant a lot of Monday morning panda faces and lots of cricket.
Reinhardt Strydom from Malahide, is the clear overall point leader, with a lead of 220 points over Clontarf’s M. Collier. Filling the third podium position is Balbriggan professional M. Farrukh. The cream does rise to the top, as evidenced by the number of Division 1 & 2 players who populate the table. Last years success stories, Lynal Jansen of Rush and Pat Collins of R&SPU are starting to appear on the leader-board which could put pressure on those above.
29 matches played in Open Competitions is an amazing amount of cricket, especially when the games played at representative level and under-age level are not included. Two players are just one game away from a month of games and they are Sanil Gupta of Pembroke and second overall, M. Collier of Clontarf. Sanil also leads in terms of innings at the crease with 28.
Best inningseses (there must be a latin grammer rule here… anyone?) Reinhardt’s 155* is only good enough for third in this list, although long time leader, but now second I. Mohammed hasn’t taken to the field again since his early season 160.
Balbriggan must be delighted with the contribution this season of M. Farrukh. 871 runs at an average of 62.21 is a fine return but add in his 19 wickets and 8 catches and his all-round ability shines through. Whilst he is the only player in Leinster (and there is a lot of them) to have scored three centuries, he also has 5 half centuries. A further 9 players have scored two centuries and 68 have done so once.
Fintan McAllister is scorer of the most half centuries, a position he has to share with North County’s T. Affleck. Overall leader Reinhardt Strydom is alone with 6, while the quality of the players with 5 fifties comes as no shock.
H Yadav of Adamstown has 68 runs whilst not being given out. Another 62 players have also escaped to the safety of the pavilion with their runs and wicket intact. Of those who have been dismissed the highest average still belongs to R&SPUs I. Mohammed with his solitary innings of 160. The players to average over 100 are:
31 players have topped 500 runs to date and a few will have aspirations to break the 1,000 runs for the season mark. Leader and therefore closest to that 1,000 run barrier is Fintan McAllister of Malahide. Fintan is 80 runs ahead of team mate and opening partner as well as overall leader, Reinhardt Strydom. All the top ten have managed to score over 600 runs.
55 players have bowled over 100 overs and this is in the days of over limits per bowler and resting the youth after 5 overs. How many overs would some of the stalwarts have put in at this stage of the season if they were bowling 20, 25 overs a game? And yet, even with the limits, four players have passed 150 overs, the top two of whom come from Malahide. There must be something in the water (about from a bill).
Best bowling analysis and possibly longest name belongs to Wicklow County’s M. Syfuzzaman Khan, who had a wonderful day during the summer taking 8 wickets. 5 other bowlers have managed 7 wickets in an innings including the aforementioned Jack Balbirnie.
Wickets taken should always be by its very nature a closer affair than runs scored. In terms of five wicket hauls there is a clear leader who has taken 50% more five-fers than any other player in Leinster. Of course this is a misleading statistical trick and nothing more. K. Neela of Merrion has three five wicket games whilst 8 players have managed to do it twice and 93 have done it just the once. K. Neela is also second in terms of total wickets taken on 38. However one player is on 39 and will be looking to reach the half century this month. R&SPU’s S. Kumar has captured his victims in 22 games, whilst K. Neela has a relatively small 16 appearances.
Leading, nay filling the catches table are wicketkeepers and they also top the stumpings. No surprise there then.
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Any feedback on the statistics you prefer, the ones you’d like to see, or even the club or player you’d like to know more about, would be welcomed on the comments or twitter @craigpcc or even email craig@cricket.ie.