Cricket Ireland has expanded the structure of its men’s domestic Inter-Provincial Series, which is scheduled to start in May and run through to September.
The Munster Reds are to become the fourth team in the 50-over Cup competition, with the creation of new performance coaching hubs, a revised squad selection process and the creation of a new emerging team competition all approved as well.
The Munster Reds will join the North West Warriors, Northern Knights and Leinster Lightning.
The teams will compete in two four-team leagues comprising a two round-robin series, allowing each team a total of six matches each in a 50 over format and a four-team league comprising a series of three-day festivals in T20.
New Provincial Union-based Performance Coaching Hubs will be established, which will replace the previous coaching regime that was arranged and led by the national head coach out of the High-Performance Centre in Dublin.
“It is widely acknowledged that more cricket is needed and there is a burning desire for more rounds of both white-ball formats to be played, as well as eventually returning to red-ball 3 or 4-day first-class cricket,” said Richard Holdsworth, High-Performance Director for Cricket Ireland.
“We consulted extensively across the sport – with the Inter-Provincial Structure Working Group, National Selectors, Senior Management Group, the Provincial Unions – resulting in proposals that our High-Performance Committee strongly endorsed to the Board. The upshot is a new competition structure and financial support for the Provincial Unions that will take effect from the 2021 season.”
“This is an exciting day for domestic representative cricket across Ireland, as we start to move forward with some substantial reforms to the men’s game. A viable and sustainable inter-provincial structure feeding talent into the international set-up is crucial for the competitiveness of our senior side on the world stage.”
The Inter-Provincial series is sponsored by Test Triangle.
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