Since records began….
A phrase we often hear in conjunction with regular news and weather, but not in Leinster cricket circles. Michael Sharp undoubtedly has a warehouse worth of the old style result postcards that archaeologists will pore over in one hundred years time, but the new system of electronic result cards has quickly become the accepted norm and as time goes by it will collect more and more data on players and even encompass their entire careers.
Paul Reynolds has now provided the full electronic statistics for the 2011 season to date. These figures come from the time of Kevin O’Brien’s magnificent century against England in the World Cup 2011 and covering the explosion of interest in cricket since that innings.
For the purposes of this article the same fantasy points system has been used as we see week in week out and some of the leading names will come as no surprise to regular readers.
3,266 players are included in the database (including the multi clubbed Player Unregistered) and there are 47 clubs including the now defunct Old Belvedere and Ballyeighan.
The top dozen clubs in terms of people taking to the field of play are: Merrion with 192 players, Leinster 168, Clontarf 160, Railway Union and Phoenix 144, Pembroke 138, Malahide 114, The Hills 110, Rush 108, North Kildare 104, YMCA 103 and celebrating their 150 years in existence Civil Service CC with 101.
R. Meraj [Laois] is the leading fantasy points scorer to date, and is the only player to have achieved more than 4,000 points. His score of 4,079 is made up of 51 games, 9 half centuries, three centuries, 1,809 runs, a solitary five wicket haul, 68 wickets and 24 catches.
The rest of the top 20 are:
2nd S. Saharan [Merrion] 3,844:
3rd S. Singh [YMCA] 3,668:
4th T. Richardson [North County] 3,574: 5th R. Gallagher [Malahide] 3,536: 6thR. Nair [Dundrum] 3,532: 7thA. Mathew [Dundrum] 3,521: 8thJack Tector [YMCA] 3,510: 9thPat Collins [R&SPU] 3,497: 10thFiachra Tucker [Pembroke] 3,464: 11th S. Kumar [R&SPU] 3,457: 12thL. Jansen [Rush] 3,434: 13thV. Gopal [Clontarf] 3,420: 14thJ. Magee [The Hills] 3,338: 15thFaran Ahmed Khan [Pembroke] 3,277: 16thG. Delany [Leinster] 3,259: 17thJ. Anderson [Merrion] 3,222: 18thU. Raees [Laois] 3,219: 19th Craig Senior [Pembroke] 3,141 and: 20th Ian Smillie [Clontarf] 3,138
In terms of matches played, old friend to this column, Conor Gibbons [Malahide] leads the way with an amazing 73 matches played and also a Leinster leading number of overs bowled. Conor is also 53rd in the overall F-points table. Nice guys do finish first sometimes, although a highest score of 4* does suggest he is selected for his bowling, which is confirmed by the figure of 93 wickets taken. However, he does also hold the lead for number of not outs with 23, which is four ahead of Bill Whaley [Pembroke]. A. Mathew [Dundrum] is the only other player to have made it to 70 games played and he has also batted in 67 of those games, another Leinster leading figure.
3,169 players have made it to the middle at least once which means only 97 players have played a game and not batted. U. Anikumar [Leinster] played four games and never once held a bat in anger. John Andrews [North County] has the most matches where he has batted in every game, 57. S. Nuthela [Old Belvedere] has the most innings 41, with not a single not out.
Highest individual scores are lead by T. Islam [Laois] with 239*. Robin Kelly [Pembroke], 219, and Anto Coates’ 203 are the other players to reach double centuries and a further 23 players have managed to get to 150 plus.
199 – R. Meraj [Laois]:
196 – S. Saharan [Merrion]:
195 – M. Ahmed [Phoenix]
170 – Ben Ackland [Merrion] & Andre Botha [Contarf]
168* - H. Pike [Dublin University], 168 – J. Quinlan [Merrion] in his only game played.
165* - V. Gopal [Clontarf]
162 – L. Jansen [Rush]
160* - N. Kenny [Merrion], 160 – Tayyab Rashid [Knockharley]
159* - C. Reilly [Balbriggan]
158* - M. Quirke [YMCA], 158 – Bill Coughlan [Clontarf]
157 – M. Gregg [Phoenix]
155* - Kenny Carroll [R&SPU]
154* - Jeff Short [Merrion]
152 – A. Shehabeddin [Malahide], I. Walshe [North Kildare]
151 – O. Saleem [Knockharley]
150* - Danny Barclay [Pembroke], 150 – S. Shahzad [Civil Service] & Reinhart Strydom [YMCA]
194 players have felt the elation of reaching a ton and of these 48 players have scored multiple centuries, but leading the way with 6 centuries are L. Jansen [Rush] and Pat Collins [R&SPU]. S. Iqbal [Rush] has five centuries and Andre Botha and V. Gopal have four to their names. Eleven players have three centuries.
Half centuries by their nature are more numerous and 907 players have achieved at least one. Tom Fisher [Terenure Titans] has more than anyone else having raised his bat 13 times to acknowledge reaching 50, whilst K. Khan [R&SPU] and Andrew Poynter [Clontarf] are only one behind on 12. Stephen J.P. Moreton [Leinster] has the most half centuries, 11, without converting any into a full century.
J. Quinlan [Merrion] unsurprisingly has the highest batting average, having scored 168 in his one game. Two other players average over 100 and both have only been dismissed once, Alan Harper [Balbriggan], average 138.00, and Ciarán McGuire [Rush], average 100.00.
38 players have averaged over 50, although only three players who have done so have played over 30 games. Kamal Merchant [YMCA] 44 matches and an average of 54.89, J. Anderson [Merrion] 38 games, 51.68 average and L. Jansen [Rush] 36 games, 50.73 average.
For the period in question, 66 players have reached 1,000 runs and no-one has passed 2,000 runs. Leading run scorer is A. Mathew [Dundrum] with 1,851 and achieved without a century. Also passed 1,800 is R. Meraj [Laois] with 1,809 runs. Next on the list is Tom Fisher [Terenure Titans] with 1,680. L. Jansen [Rush] 1,674, S. Iqbal [Rush] 1,644, J. Anderson [Merrion] 1,602, K. Khan [R&SPU] 1,599, Pat Collins [R&SPU] 1,517 and Sammi Singh [YMCA] 1,508 are the players over 1,500 runs.
Now we move to the other side, the bowlers and their accomplishments. 2,431 players have bowled in the past three seasons from the aforementioned Conor Gibbons, who won’t let go of the ball to G. Reehal [Sandyford], D. Khan [Leinster], A. Nolan [Terenure Titans] and M. Byrne [Rush] who turned their arms over for just the one delivery.
S. Kumar [R&SPU] is the only player to have reached 100 wickets for the time covered by this article having taken 104 @15.89. The bowlers to have more than 90 victims are, R. Nair [Dundrum] 99, Faran Ahmed Khan [Pembroke] 97, Rex Walsh [Merrion] and S. Gallagher [Halverstown] 96, Stephen Langton [Sandyford] 95, Conor Gibbons [Malahide] and G. Delany [Leinster] 91. A further seven players have more than 80 wickets. S. Saharan [Merrion] 88, Fiachra Tucker [Pembroke] 86, Y. Ali [YMCA] 85, Nicky Jagoe [R&SPU] 84, A. Qasim [Balbriggan] and R. Mehta [Civil Service] 83 and Paul Lawson [Pembroke] 82.
As previously mentioned, Conor Gibbons [Malahide] has bowled more overs, 490.3, than any one else in the province and as a result has conceded more runs than any one else too. R. Nair [Dundrum], A. Kamal [Malahide] and Y. Ali [YMCA] have all also bowled more than 400 overs, whilst P. Flanagan [YMCA] is only 5 balls from doing so.
No-one has managed to take all ten wickets in an innings for the years covered here, but S. Sood [YMCA] came closest with 9/15. The five players to take eight wickets in an innings are, S. Mujeni [Knockharley], 8/6, P. Crosse [Wicklow County], 8/9, Y. Ali [YMCA] 8/16, Jack Tector [YMCA] 8/40 and Mark Dwyer [The Hills] 8/49.
R. Chalissery [Ring Commons] with 7/6, leads those 15 players who have taken seven wickets and T. Mount [Mullingar] with 6/3 heads those 70 players who have six victims. P. Byrne [Leinster] is also noteworthy with his five wicket haul costing a single run.
311 players, including those mentioned above, have left the field with the “Michelle”, the five wicket haul. A. Qasim [Balbriggan] and Stephen Langton [Sandyford] have done so four times each. Seven players have done so three times, Anto Burke [Sandyford], Fiachra Tucker [Pembroke], R. Chambers [Malahide], G. Angel [Knockharley], A. Shah [Dundalk], Rex Walsh [Merrion] and T. Richardson [North County].
S. Jose [Swords] statistically has an average of 0.00, with one over, one wicket, but A. Isaacs [Ballyeighan] did manage four wickets for four runs in eight overs. Ignoring the under-bowled and including a qualification of at least 30 wickets, Kamal Merchant [YMCA] leads with 65 wickets @ 7.40. N. Bhandari [Cabinteely] has 40 wickets @ 7.72 and R. Singh [Sandyford] has 43 @ 8.74.
The one difficulty that the figures provided by Paul Reynolds do not show wicket-keepers catches and fielders catches. However, we plough on with our own way of dealing with this. Any players mentioned here with an asterisk have also recorded at least one stumping and could possibly be full-time or even part time keepers. 2,024 people have held at least one catch, but leading with 39 is T. James* [Clontarf]. 19 players have 30 or more catches and every one of them has at least one stumping too. Most catches without a stumping goes to M. Byrne [Balbriggan] 28, which means he is either taking these catches in the outfield or he isn’t very good at stumpings. Let us assume the former.
Most dismissals, through a combination of catches and stumpings, is lead by R. Maybury [Clontarf] with second highest catches, 36 and 18 stumpings for a total of 54. One behind is R. Forrest [Leinster] with 34 caught and 19 stumped for 53 victims. Third with 51 victims and with the most stumpings, 23, is Rohit Bahl [Pembroke] who is not playing this season having returned to India last year.
Finally who is the most valuable player on a per game basis? Which player out of 3,266 people, male and female, who have played in the Leinster Cricket Union leagues and cups has earned the most points per game? If we ignore the statistically freakish J. Quinlan’s 168 runs in one game and insist on a qualification of over 30 matches then the person you’d want on a fantasy team is L. Jansen [Rush] with 95.37 points per game.