Division 1 stats
Leading all time run scorer (2011-2017) - Eddie Richardson (North County) - 2802 runs @ 41.82
Most runs in a Division 1 season - Daniel Solway (Pembroke) - 851 runs (2016)
Highest score - Eddie Richardson (North County) - 194* - North County 1 vs YMCA 1 - Inch - 22 April 2017
Leading all time wicket taker (2011-2017) - Eddie Richardson (North County) - 178 wkts @ 16.18
Most wickets in a Division 1 season - Eddie Richardson (North County) - 37 wkts (2015)
Best bowling - Jack Tector - 8-40 - YMCA 1 vs Clontarf 1 - Castle Avenue - 18 August 2012
Most matches - Eddie Richardson - 88 - (2011-2017)
Highest team score - 353-4 - Merrion 1 vs Railway Union 1 - Anglesea Road - 11 July 2015
Lowest team score - 59 all out - Clontarf 1 vs Leinster 1 - Castle Avenue - 28 April 2012 and Phoenix 1 vs Clontarf 1 - Castle Avenue - 4 Sept 2016
Team of the Year (in batting order) - Andy Balbirnie (Pembroke) (Division 1, 2013), Gareth Delany (Leinster) (Division 2, 2016; Division 3, 2014, 2016; Division 5, 2013), Simranjit Singh (YMCA) (Division 1, 2013, 2014, 2016), George Dockrell (Leinster) (Division 2, 2016), Eddie Richardson (North County) (Division 1, 2013, 2015, 2016), Sean Terry (The Hills), Craig Mallon (Leinster), Jamie Grassi (North County, wicketkeeper) (Division 1, 2016), Ryan Hopkins (Pembroke), Conor Kelly (Clontarf) (Division 1, 2014), Joe Carroll (Leinster) (Division 2, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016)
Review
Runs per wicket for all teams - 23.97 Runs per over for all teams - 4.90
Leinster 1 - Champions - Batting Rating 118 - Bowling Rating 135 - RpO for 4.82 - RpO against 4.45
The headline says that Leinster won their 24th top tier league title, and their first since 2012. The story behind that season reveals a remarkable comeback, with two dates standing out. On June 10, Leinster lost to Phoenix by 4 wickets, to continue a fairly miserable start to the season. They had beaten Cork County in the first match of the year, but then lost to Clontarf, Phoenix and Pembroke, to let a few relegation fears start to creep in. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Liffey, Clontarf had started their season in imperious fashion, winning their first four. Fast forward to the morning of August 5th, where Leinster were in Castle Avenue to play Clontarf. The home side had slipped up once, but were still top of the league with a 7-1 record, whereas although Leinster's record had improved (to 3-3 (with 8 points for the rained off Hills/Leinster match), there was still little chance (or thought) of a league title. Clontarf probably needed to win three of their last six matches to regain their league title, whereas Leinster had to win six of their last seven, and hope Clontarf slipped up. It is difficult to remember just how unlikely that seemed on August 5th, but as we now know it came to pass. It wouldn't be fair to anyone concerned to not mention the contribution of a certain Ireland player. George Dockrell missed the first four games of the season (playing for Dublin University and Ireland), with Leinster only winning one. He played the last nine with Leinster winning eight. His contribution was 466 runs at 58.25, 12 wickets at 14.67 as well as captaining the team and making it on to our Team of the Year. He had plenty of able lieutenants as well. Craig Mallon had the season of his career, scoring 422 runs at 42.2 to be Leinster's second representative on the Team of the Year. The third was Gareth Delany who made his 5th Team of the Year, but his first at the highest level, with 541 runs at 41.62 and 13 wickets at 29.31, and the fourth was Joe Carroll, who was leading wicket taker with 29 wickets at 11.31, including 7-35 against North County in the final game of the season, the first bowler to take 7 wickets in an innings for Leinster in the last seven years. He also added a distinctly useful 335 runs at 30.45. Six others made contributions that were major enough to be mentioned. Bilal Azhar took 23 wickets at 17.83 (only North County's Eddie Richardson and Andrew Sheridan, Clontarf's John Mooney and Carroll took more), overseas player Jayden Brown took 19 at 18.89, and Saqib Bahadur took 13 at 21.38. Three batsman got to 100 runs, although would be massively happy with that - Arslan Anwar scored 115 at 11.5, JP O'Dwyer had 112 at 16, and Danny Coad scored 110 at 27.5.
Clontarf 1 - Runners up - Batting Rating 104 - Bowling Rating 117 - RpO for 5.11 - RpO against 4.98
Let's not get carried away. Although the wheel's fell off Clontarf's 2017 league campaign, they were still runners up; they still haven't finished outside of the top three since 2013; and they will still be the team to beat in 2018. Most of the second half of their season was entwined with Leister's, and as such is described above. But although it may seem unkind to those in the Castle Avenue area, the details of the last six games of the season have to be looked at. My first impression was that the Clontarf batting line up collapsed mid season, and couldn't put together decent total from August on. But that just isn't true. Clontarf won two of their last four games, and ran up a brilliant 329-7 at home against Cork County on August 7th. In the last game of the season (which was dead by the time it was played), they may not have dominated, but still had 53 runs too many for The Hills. Even in one of the matches they lost (to North County), they nearly chased 280, falling short by two runs. In truth, there were just three batting failures - 135 at home to Leinster, 158 away to Pembroke and 167 at home to YMCA, that lost Clontarf the league. Taking the last six games of the season together, three batsman emerged from the carnage (Waqar Azmat with 200 at 50, Bill Coghlan with 208 at 34.67 and David Delany with 201 at 40.20), but no one else scored more than 84 runs, and no one averaged over 20. And it is difficult to win matches in the ultra competitive Leinster Division 1 with only three batsmen. Let us return once more to our initial premise - that it was hardly a disaster, and Clontarf are still the team to beat. The one slightly surprising member of the Team of the Year was Conor Kelly who missed the start of the season due to injury, blazed brightly for five matches in the middle of the season, before succumbing to injury once more. In those five matches he took 11 wickets at 14.73. Tarf were pretty much the most stable team in the entire Open Comps (whether that is a good or bad thing, I'll leave up to you!). Apart from Kelly, there were 11 others who played in pretty much every game, and they all made a decent contribution. Player coach John Mooney was leading wicket taker, taking 24 wickets at 18.83. It was his most successful season with the ball that we have on record (back to 2009), but unfortunately it wasn't quite as successful with the bat with 333 runs at 25.62. Shariful Islam's bowling took Clontarf to T20 glory, but he was also one of the best in the longer form, with 19 wickets at 17.16, along with 114 runs at 16.29. Joe Morrissey pretty much did the same as hie did since time immemorial with 18 wickets at 19.61, and Sameer Dutt took 17 at 20, just one wicket down on 2016. David Delany was the sixth Clontarf bowler to take ten wicket or more, with 14 wickets at 26.29, although in some ways it was his batting that was even more impressive this year - 220 runs at 31.43. Six more batsmen are worthy of note - overseas player Bradley Barnes was leading run scorer with 414 at 34.5, Bill Coghlan scored 364 at 28 (although never more than 58 in an innings), Waqar Azmat (in his first season in Clontarf after a move from Malahide) scored 288 at 28.8, and then three more batsmen who didn't make 200 runs - Robert Forrest (197 at 15.15), Declan Gallagher (183 at 15.25) and Andrew Poynter (186 t 20.67).
The Hills 1 - 3rd - Batting Rating 113 - Bowling Rating 106 - RpO for 4.90 - RpO against 4.48
Many of you may be wondering why the Hills were not included in the description of how Leinster and Clontarf tussled for the league. A closer look at how the points were gained throughout the season reveals that The Hills were always just a bit too far behind the leaders. From the very first match of the season, The Hills' bonus points were less than both Clontarf and Leinster's, and it meant that they always needed to have a superior number of wins to both teams - and that never happened. The closest The Hills came to the league title was after beating Leinster by 1 wicket on August 19th. After that match all three teams had lost four matches, but due to Leinster's superior number of bonus points, The Hills needed Leinster to lose once more to give them a chance - and that didn't happen. But let us not be too despondent. It was The Hills' first top three finish since their Division 1 title in 2013, and the side oozed class. Batting was slightly the stronger suit - Cormac McLoughlin-Gavin had his best Division 1 season since 2013, leading the run scoring with 380 runs at 29.23, Max Sorensen was as dependable and devastating as ever with 317 runs at 31.7 (and with a strike rate of 127), and newly installed Denmark captain, Hamid Shah scored 316 at 39.5. The development of wicketkeeper Mark Donegan is rapidly advancing, and he scored 290 at 32.22. The team's one member of the Team of the Year is one of the five internationals on the team (four from Ireland, and one Denmark). Sean Terry only played seven matches across the season, but scored 270 runs at 54, one of only four players to average over 50 in Division 1 this season. Three others passed 100 runs for the season - Tomás Rooney Murphy (158 at 39.5), Albert van der Merwe (143 at 17.88) and Naseer Shoukat with 135 at 22.5. Overseas player Ryan Cartwright spearheaded the bowling attack with 21 at 22.29, van der Merwe took 19 at 21.58, Yaqoob Ali had 15 at 23.40, Luke Clinton 15 at 22, and Shoukat 14 at 25.07.
YMCA 1 - 4th - Batting Rating 114 - Bowling Rating 93 - RpO for 5.28 - RpO against 5.02
In the cut throat world of Division 1 cricket, YMCA spent most of the season looking over their shoulder towards the relegation places, before finishing strongly to end up in 4th place, their best position since being crowned champions in 2014. An awful start to the season saw them lose their first three matches, and soon after giving Cork County their only win of the season to be 2-4 half way through the summer. They they won six of the last eight (only losing twice to champions Leinster), to be solidly mid table. That consistency must be a worry though, ranging from that defeat to Cork County (which was a high scoring T20 refix played in Laois, in which Muhammad Saddique hit 68 off 25 balls as Cork chased 219) to an excellent Aviral Shukla inspired (he took 5-17) four wicket away win to Clontarf. The bowling struggled all season, and whilst the three prongs of the attack were excellent, there was little support. Harry Tector was best with 21 at 18.48, followed by Simranjit Singh (19 at 16.32) and James Parkinson (19 at 24.32). Singh was outstanding as you'd expect from a player who forced his way into the Ireland team. He was named in his fourth Division 1 Team of the Year, and on top of those 19 wickets, he scored 511 runs at 56.78. It was the second time he has scored more than 500 runs in a Division 1 season, and only North County's Eddie Richardson has done it more. Australian Oliver Gunning was next with 483 runs at 34.5, and three more players scored over 300 runs - Tom Fisher (362 at 27.85), Harry Tector (349 at 31.73) and Jack Tector (342 at 28.5). Three more players complete the role of honour - Sam Murphy scored 175 at 17.5, James Parkinson 188 at 20.89 and Bobby Gamble with 185 at 26.43. That gave huge strength in depth to the batting, but there wasn't enough oomph to the bowling.
North County 1 - 5th - Batting Rating 104 - Bowling Rating 97 - RpO for 5.14 - RpO against 5.13
It wouldn't be too controversial to say that four players for North County 1 stood ahead of the others - Eddie Richardson, Niall McGovern, Jamie Grassi and Andrew Sheridan. However, there were perhaps nine other players who if they had been able to have a more productive season, may have turned North County from a mid table side into a title winning outfit. It is very easy to dismiss North County as Eddie Richardson plus ten others, and whilst that isn't fair, we also shouldn't dismiss another incredible season from Ireland's best all round cricketer. The bare bones of 2017 were that he scored 544 runs at 45.33 (including that breath-taking 194* in the first game of the season against YMCA) and 31 wickets at 15.19. He was named in our Division 1 Team of the Year for the fourth time in the last five seasons. He is one of only six batsmen to have scored more than 3000 "Senior" runs in the last seven seasons, and is the leading wicket taker in the same category. But much of the supporting cast are now developing into fine players in their own right. Andrew Sheridan took 28 wickets at 19.79, a mark that has only been bettered by six players, and of those, only Pembroke's Paul Lawson and Sheridan have not played for Lightning. It was a breakthrough season for Niall McGovern, who has never scored more than 100 runs in a Division 1 season since debuting in 2011, but this year scored 342 at 31.09, including his maiden senior hundred - 118* against Clontarf in August. And finally to Jamie Grassi who is improving year on year, and this year scored his first two Senior hundreds - 172* at home to Pembroke in August, and 114* at home to Phoenix in June. They helped his seasonal tally to 440 runs at 40, and put him in the Team of the Year as wicketkeeper with most dismissals. And so to the supporting cast. Including Sheridan, nine players scored 100 league runs, without getting to 200. Tomás Sheil (178 at 16.18), Sheridan (177 at 14.75), Jonathan Andrews (175 at 17.5), Nathan Rooney (170 at 21.25), Adam Coughlan (117 at 23.4), Conor Sheil (109 at 18.17) and Terry Richardson (100 at 21.25). If some of those had kicked on then who knows? Coughlan added to his runs with 11 wickets at 26.55, and Cian Mulvaney had his best ever Division 1 season with 14 wickets at 19.57.
Phoenix 1 - 6th - Batting Rating 92 - Bowling Rating 98 - RpO for 4.84 - RpO against 4.74
In a repeat of the 2016 season, Phoenix started well, before having a mid season collapse and a grim effort to avoid relegation. It needed a last day win over Cork County (as well as Pembroke losing to YMCA) with Phoenix squeezing out of the possible play off spot by dint of a few bonus points. That collapse hid a brilliant start to the season in which they beat YMCA, Pembroke, The Hills, Leinster and Cork County, and those six wins contributed to a second successive 6th place in the league. We rated the bowling attack as just slightly below the Division 1 average, and as the fourth best in the division. Ari Karvelas burst on to the scene with a hundred and three wickets in the first game of the season, and kept at it - not being spectacular, but good enough to be the leading Phoenix wicket taker with 23 wickets at 19.43 and the second highest run scorer with 357 runs at 32.45. Ben White took 20 wickets at 24.65, leading to a trawl through the records for leg spinners who have done the same thing in recent years. The list is revealing - John Anderson (Merrion), Pat Collins (Railway Union), Fiachra Tucker (Pembroke), Stephen Moreton (Clontarf/Terenure/Leinster), Rod Hokin (Clontarf), Jono Cook (Pembroke), David Rhoda (Merrion) - leggies are potent weapons, but of that list of eight, only White and Tucker have learnt their trade in Ireland. The old reliable Reinhardt Strydom took 14 wickets at 25.29, and was the team's leading run scorer with 422 runs at 32.46. Tom Anders took 12 wickets at 33, and Adam Chester, the third quickest scorer in the division of those who scored 200 runs (behind Max Sorensen and Ryan Hopkins), scored 225 runs at 20.45. Gordon Millar played his first season of Division 1 cricket taking11 wickets at 23.18, but there was one glaring omission, with Rory Anders unable to bowl because of injury. To compensate, he scored 356 runs at 25.43, but the lack of the bowler who starred for Ireland u19s the preceding winter was a blow. His brother Tom scored 222 at 22.2, Nicolaas Pretorius hit 345 at 24.64 and Richard Lawrence proved his class once more with 251 runs at 35.86.
Pembroke 1 - 7th - Batting Rating 102 - Bowling Rating 90 - RpO for 4.92 - RpO against 4.97
The very nature of Division 1 means that every season there is a hard luck story, a club that really was too good to go down. In fairness to Pembroke, once Malahide failed to overtake Dublin University in Division 2, there was not going to be a play off, and hence Pembroke were never in any danger of playing Division 2 cricket. But for a side that has been challenging towards the top of the league for the past four seasons, it was a bit of come down. And just to ram home that point, if Pembroke had won their last two matches instead of losing them, they probably would have come fourth instead of their lowest league position since 2012. The wicket taking totals of the Broke bowling attack weren't too bad, but with one exception the number of runs that each of those wickets cost were on the high side. That exception had a glorious season with the ball. Ryan Hopkins seems to have been around for ever, but still in his mid 20s, he has the capability to go much further. He took 16 wickets at 13.62 to make our Division 1 Team of the Year, including two of the fourteen instances of a bowler taking five wickets in a innings this year. Paul Lawson took 20 wickets in a Division 1 season for the third year in a row, but his 20 at 25.05 was eight runs per wicket more expensive than in 2015 or 2016. JJ Garth had his first full season of to tier cricket, taking 14 wickets at 27.70, Fiachra Tucker had 11 at 36, and Jack Balbirnie 10 at 41.6. The batting held its own with six batsmen passing 200 runs. To prove the adage that class always shone through, Andrew Balbirnie made our Team of the Year (for the first time since 2013). Although he only played five matches, he scored 279 runs at 55.80 (with Pembroke only winning two of those five games). Nick Cutler had a tough year following in the footsteps of 2016 overseas player Daniel Solway, but he scored the 4th highest number of runs in a Pembroke league season since 2011, with 468 at 36. Theo Lawson scored over 300 league runs for the third year in a row with 353 at 35.3 (one of only seven batsmen to have scored over 1000 runs in Division 1 in the last three years), and Fiachra Tucker was a revelation with 368 runs 30.67 including his maiden Senior ton. Before this season Tucker had scored 413 runs in Division 1 at an average of 13.32 this year he scored 368 runs at 30.67. Hopkins was next in the run scoring with 243 at 27, then Danny Hogan (215 at 26.88), Jack Balbirnie (122 at 13.56), Paul Lawson (113 at 11.3) and Lorcan Tucker 107 at 11.89.
Cork County 1 - 8th - Batting Rating 61 - Bowling Rating 73 - RpO for 4.00 - RpO against 5.45
Another attempt by Cork County 1 to avoid relegation from Division 1 ended in failure, with only one league win to their name - that T20 refix win against YMCA in Laois (details above). Unfortunately there aren't too many positives to take from this review. 29 players were roped in at some point in the season, a massive figure for a Division 1 team, where stability is much more common than further down the leagues. However, that high number is of course completely understandable with the team also playing a parallel league campaign in Munster. The batting was a massive issue - remarkably the only time the team passed 200 was in that T20 refix, and they were bowled out for less than 150 eight times. Morne Bauer was leading run scorer with 284 runs at 23.67, Rob Duggan was useful with 234 at 26, and Stephanus Grobler passed 200 runs but presumably wouldn't have been over the moon with 230 runs at 19.17. The only other two to make 100 runs were Cormac Hassett with 128 at 9.85 and Gary King with 159 at 14.45. The bowling relied on three of those already mentioned - Bauer with 14 at 29.79, King had 12 at 29.75 and Grobler 11 at 32.91. 2018 could well be a year for rebuilding.
The full Division 1 batting averages can be found here, whilst the bowling averages are here.