Popped Collars returned to Weston this season after 5 seasons away playing at Lyneham and Kaleen. The competition was certainly of much higher quality than when we left - although it was also a different night of the week. We jumped between A and B grades in a seemingly random fashion from week to week, eventually ending up in the B-Grade finals.
Beginning the season in A-Grade, the quality of the competition was evident as we won just 1 of our first 7 games. After that, we picked up, not only winning the games against B-Grade teams we played, but also knocking off the occasional A-Grade side.
In a typical Weston-style extra-super-long season we ended with 17 wins from 30 matches.
Matches Played
This was the equal longest season we have ever played, tied with the very first Popped Collars season, back in 2009/10 in which we also played 30 matches. Although, technically, this season was longer - the first season included numerous double-headers, whereas this season actually ran for 30 weeks (25 March - 14 October).
This was also the first ever season that Xavier was not the player to play the most games. During the 2010/11 season, Xavier and Andy tied for top place; but this season Rian and Gareth (28) both played 1 game more than Xavier (27).
Batting
Brad continued his career stats of being the batter with the most extra innings, being the only regular player this season to bat a second time in a match.
Batting stats are in the following table. They show how this season was certainly tougher than most, with every regular player batting below their career average - in most cases quite a bit below. Similarly, even though this was our longest season, none of the records for most runs in a season were threatened - no one got within 100 runs of the overall record of 721 (Xavier, 2009/10).
| Player | Matches | Innings | Outs | Runs | Back Nets | Average |
| Xavier | 27 | 27 | 30 | 620 | 46 | 22.96 |
| Rian | 28 | 28 | 60 | 538 | 63 | 19.21 |
| Julian | 12 | 12 | 25 | 221 | 32 | 18.42 |
| Brad | 24 | 25 | 62 | 426 | 64 | 17.04 |
| Tim | 15 | 15 | 30 | 232 | 22 | 15.47 |
| Gareth | 28 | 28 | 71 | 339 | 37 | 12.11 |
| Sanjit | 24 | 24 | 58 | 286 | 34 | 11.92 |
| Omar | 21 | 21 | 53 | 177 | 18 | 8.43 |
| Dan | 24 | 24 | 78 | 139 | 31 | 5.79 |
| Rajit | 14 | 14 | 38 | 29 | 6 | 2.07 |
I've included number of back net shots hit by each batter, just for a bit of something different.
Bowling
For the 5th season out of 10, Gareth is the team's most prolific wicket taker, despite never being the overall 'best' bowler (lowest average runs per over). Although, Rajit did have a higher 'wickets per over' average. The Jenga-bus were the dominant bowling force this season, taking out 2 of the top 3 spots.
| Player | Matches | Overs | Wickets | Runs | Extras | Average |
| Rajit | 14 | 27* | 40 | 122 | 16 | 9.04 |
| Rian | 28 | 56 | 60 | 313 | 31 | 11.18 |
| Sanjit | 24 | 49 | 35 | 279 | 80 | 11.39 |
| Gareth | 28 | 56 | 74 | 367 | 15 | 13.11 |
| Omar | 21 | 42 | 41 | 303 | 31 | 14.43 |
| Xavier | 27 | 54 | 44 | 412 | 73 | 15.26 |
| Brad | 24 | 48 | 57 | 369 | 41 | 15.38 |
| Julian | 12 | 24 | 26 | 201 | 31 | 16.75 |
| Tim | 15 | 30 | 29 | 287 | 38 | 19.13 |
| Dan | 24 | 49 | 35 | 481 | 36 | 19.63 |
I can't work out why Rajit only has 27 overs, which is less than 2 overs per match. He may have taken even more wickets!
Again, just for something different, I've thrown in number of extra bowled by each player. Sanjit could have even better figures if it wasn't for so many wide balls bowled. (Yes, I'm also quite the offender in this category).
Unusual Highlights (and "Highlights")
Rajit surely set some kind of records this season by taking both a so-called "double-hat-trick" (4 wickets in a row) and a presumably-called "triple-hat-trick" (5 wickets in row). Not only did he do them in one season, but in one month (July). His 4-in-a-row actually become a team five-in-a-row when Gareth claimed a wicket on the next ball.
There was also a selection of unusual wicket types for our batters:
LBW: Rajit became the first player to be dismissed LBW twice in his career,
Interference: Dan became the first Popped Collars player to be (unintentionally) given out "Interference". One opponent has been given out this way, back in our very first season.
Hit Wicket: Adding to that, Dan was also dismissed "Hit Wicket" during the season - only Evan has ever done that (unintentionally) while batting for us. One opponent has done it before, also during season number one.
Finally, we were the masters of finishing off games. We had 7 matches last season that were decided by 11 runs or less - and we won all 7 of them!
I suppose that means that when we were beaten, we were beaten well; but as long as we stayed in contention to the end, we took our chance!
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