Swords to take home Division 8

In an achievement that may have gone under the radar in much of Leinster, Swords 1 won the club’s first ever league title and the team’s ever first trophy, when they pipped Laois 2 by 14 points after finishing with the same win/loss record – 10 wins and 4 losses. Laois won both matches between the two sides, Swords lost the home matches against Knockharley and Ashbourne as well. So it would be easy to describe Swords’ title as not convincing, but that would be unfair. In one of the hardest fought divisions, they came out on top, breaking into the top 60 in Leinster for the first time, but staying at the 30th best first team. Three pillars of Swords made our Team of the Year – one batsman, one bowler and a keeper. Keeper Benlee Muttathottil equalled his 2016 record of most dismissals by a Swords 1 keeper, but it was with the bat that he made most impact. His 453 runs at 37.75 was the highest ever scored in a league season for Swords 1. It was also the third season in a row that Muttathottil made our Team of the Year. Ebin Paiva scord 359 runs at 39.89, and is now the second highest run scorer for Swords in all cricket (with 1656 at 33.12), behind only Manoj Jacob’s 2098 at 22.08. Muralidhar Ng was the final member of the triumvirate with 19 wickets at 12. Sreekanth Gopalakrishnan had an awesome all round season with 296 runs at 26.91 and 19 wickets at 14.37 and Jinu George took 18 wickets at 18.67.