In the last of this series a few of the more irrelevant figures are looked at. No! the rest of them haven’t been irrelevant at all.
We will be looking at such things as:
And other questions that come to me as I look through the entire spreadsheet for the umpteenth time. If you see me on Mastermind expect my specialised subject to be Leinster cricket statistics 2015.
So who has batted the most times without scoring a run? Conor Gibbons of Malahide, who this column considers Leinster Cricket’s Dorian Grey, played an amazing 25 games without scoring a run, although it must be noted that he only batted 4 times.
Here are the players who did not score any runs despite appearing in the middle, with their number of innings.
The following players all played more than one game, but did not gain any fantasy points except those for setting foot on the ground. Their points per game average was 10. One suspects these players got their selection call-up late in the day, or even on the day. Is L. Schnackenberg related to Slieve Bloom’s Mick? Is David McGeehan of Clontarf another family member who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and took the call? If you call up the captain of the Irish Women’s team, who has won the Intra-Club Womens batting trophy for the past 5 years and opens the bowling internationally, should you utilise her skills as well as having a fielder? Is M Glennon from a family more used to badminton than traipsing around the grounds of Leinster?
Now onto a category where without even checking the figures I am pretty sure I won’t be the only one who guesses the leader. More wickets than runs is pretty special, especially if you have played a full season.
How wrong I was, were you? Leader in this category is Clontarf’s pace bowler M Grainger who scored four runs, but also took 43 wickets for a score of 39. In short, 860 points for bowling and four for batting. This is testament to the strength of the Clontarf First XI batting order, as well as the potency of his bowling. My choice for the top spot, Dorian sorry, Conor Gibbons of Malahide finishes here second, whilst the other podium position goes to Pembroke’s David Murphy. Fourth place goes to a man who battles on season after season and who has racked up his 900th game and now has over 500 wickets in Leinster cricket, Anto Burke.
A total of 76 players have qualified for this category, all the way down to Lucy Small of North Kildare with one wicket and no runs, although a further 24 players also have a total score of 1.
Here is the list of those players who have at least 4 more wickets than runs.
And to finish this series, what of my, and Paul Reynolds’ and the entire OCC’s favourite player, Player Unregistered. How has his season been? Has the LCU got his €15?
He has played in 55 games, more than any other player, although he, of course, has played for many teams in many clubs. Here are his appearances by number of games played for each club.
He has scored 1,789 fantasy points, good enough for 7th place overall. No wonder captains turn to him so often. His point-per-game of 32.53 is however only good enough for 1,113rd place. His highest score is 136 which he scored for Rush. That one century plus another half century help his run total to 564, however this is tempered by his 11 ducks, which Peter Marshall would have been delighted to see. He bowled 144.2 overs, which brought him 28 wickets at 24.14 and an economy rate of a very respectable 4.7 per over. His best bowling spell, for Ring Commons, saw him claim 3/22. As if to underline his versatility he also managed to catch 7 catches and even one stumping. How do the selectors not consider him for the Lightning?
Well that’s it for now. I hope you have enjoyed my scribbling, my rants, my points of interest and my manipulating of figures over and over again this summer.
I trust you will all winter safely and winter well. The LCU Awards Dinner is next up and I am sure a few of you will attend to collect your league titles and individual awards. The Fantasy League offers no such grandeur, just recognition and I think that through this series of articles I have managed to mention or offend most of the 2,147 people out there who have played cricket this summer.