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Open Competitions, A mid-term report

The recently published list of clubs and teams that qualified for the semi-finals of the is disappointing from a Merrion perspective – there are no representatives from our Open teams. It is true that earlier in the season the 1st XI did qualify for the Alan Murray SFs, but did not progress further than that. This year Merrion joins two other Premier League clubs, YMCA and Pembroke, with no teams through to the various T20 Cup Competitions.

More important, however, is the league positions. The breakdown of the different Open Competition league placing for the different Merrion teams is as follows at the midway point.

League MCC Played Won NR/Tied Lost Position
Premier 1st XI 7 3 1 3 4th
Premier 2nd XI 2nd XI 7 5 1 1 1st
D4 3rd XI 5 2 1 2 4th
D7 4th XI 10 2 1/1 6 6th
D11 5th XI 4 1 0 3 6th
D14 6th XI 8 2 0 6 8th last
D19 7th XI 11 3 0 8 9th last

While there is plenty of time left to improve placings, at the moment it looks as if most of the Open teams in the club are fighting relegation battles with only the 2nd XI in a strong position to challenge for a title.

Combined with the lack of success in the T20 competitions the results so far suggest that a review of performance and playing strength will be required at the end of the season.

Looking at the overall player averages for the club. 119 players have turned out in Open Competitions. Rishabh Sharma has scored the most runs – the only player to exceed 400. The ten top scorers [those over 250 runs] are set out in the table below.

Name Mts Inns NOs Runs HS Average SR
Rishabh Sharma 23 22 4 419 65 23.28 87.84
Denny David 18 15 2 364 70 28.00 76.29
Swapnil Modgill 12 12 2 347 86 34.70 90.84
John Anderson 13 13 2 333 105 30.27 84.52
Razwan Ahmed 11 11 2 331 73* 36.78 145.95
Himanshu Sharma 13 13 1 324 62 27.00 79.75
Niranjan Shankar 13 11 4 302 66 43.14 89.43
Jahanshar Siddiqi 21 20 1 294 46 15.47 85.47
Pashtoon Barkzai 13 13 2 283 92 25.73 71.13
Stephen Doheny 9 9 0 273 65 30.33 98.56

Similarly ten players have taken 15 or more wickets, with Nitin Sharma the leading wicket taker and also has the best bowling average.

Name Mts Overs Runs Wickets 5WI BBI Average Econ SR
Nitin Sharma 11 67.5 330 25 0  4-45 13.2 4.86 16.28
Sebastian Dijkstra 17 78.4 365 21 1  5-38 17.38 4.64 22.48
Daniel Forkin 13 80 281 20 0  3-13 14.05 3.51 24
Chetan Suttraway 13 67 318 18 2  6-26 17.67 4.75 22.33
Tom Stanton 13 80.1 362 18 0  4-20 20.11 4.52 26.72
Iilham Afghan 16 75.5 399 17 0  3-17 23.47 5.26 26.76
Rishabh Sharma 23 55.1 335 16 0  4-26 20.94 6.07 20.69
Samuel Harbinson 14 75.4 379 16 0  3-15 23.69 5.01 28.38
Peter Forkin 13 83 307 16 1  6-22 19.19 3.7 31.13
Daniyal Ali 11 61 260 15 0  3-13 17.33 4.26 24.4

Finally, mention should be made of the touring sides who have made the trip to Ireland this year. Already this year we have hosted teams from Australia and San Fransisco as well as opponents from nearer to home. It is not all about competitive league cricket.

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