The Inter-Provincial Championship is a three-day cricket tournament in Ireland, played between regional teams drawn from three of Ireland's five provincial unions. It parallels first-class cricket tournaments in other countries such as the County Championship of England and the Sheffield Shield of Australia. The tournament was held for the first time in 2013 across venues in Ireland. Up to and including the 2016 tournament, the matches were not given first-class status. However, at an International Cricket Council meeting in October 2016, first-class status was awarded to all future matches, starting with the 2017 tournament.
History
Background
The Ireland cricket team have had huge success recently on the international level which has boosted the popularity of the game in the country. They had earned the reputation of a giant killer after upsetting teams like Pakistan and Bangladesh, and England. Their good performances in major international tournaments meant that Cricket Ireland openly started bidding for Test match status to the International Cricket Council. Nevertheless, one of the main stumbling road blocks for Ireland from getting to play the pinnacle of the game was a lack of a first-class cricket infrastructure at home, amongst other things. As early as August 2011, Cricket Ireland announced plans of a domestic first-class tournament. In January 2012, Cricket Ireland announced the ambitious 'Vision 2020' plan which announced the establishment of a first-class structure by 2015 and achievement of Test status by 2020. It also began work on a cricket academy to find talented players across the country and improving grass-roots cricket in the country. For the first time professional contacts, with central, A, B, and C were established. Plans for Test status were established partly to stem the flow of their star cricketers moving away to England in hope of playing Test cricket such as Ed Joyce, Eoin Morgan and Boyd Rankin. According to Richard Holdsworth in an interview with Setanta Sports, CI are pleased with the strategic progress that had been made as of November 2012. In December 2012, Ireland got a $1.5m boost as increased funding from the ICC to establish elite domestic competitions in the country.
Format
The tournament is played in a double round-robin format, with each team playing each other twice, once at home and once away.
Points summary
Points are scored as follows:
Win – 16 points
Draw – 3 points
Tie – 8 points
Batting bonus points – 1 point for scoring 150, 200, 250 and 300 runs
Bowling bonus points – 1 points for taking 3, 5, 7 and 9 wickets
Bonus points only apply for the first 100 overs of each team's first innings
Over rate penalties also apply on a match by match basis for teams who fail to bowl their overs at the required rate
Teams
Three of Ireland's five cricket unions take part in the Inter-Provincial Series; Munster Cricket Union and Connacht Cricket Union do not participate. In the six years of its existence, the competition has been dominated by Leinster Lightning, winning the first five titles, including the 2017 competition, the first one treated as a first-class competition. In 2018, North West Warriors finally broke the Leinster stranglehold, winning their first Championship. In July 2020, Danish cricketer Freddie Klokker suggested that a European XI team could play in the competition, to give more experience to European cricketers playing in the longer format of the game.
