Interprovincial Cricket

CorsendonkX

Not exactly having a major impact on the public or Irish Cricket fans judging by the lack of coverage it has got this year since it was branded and launched. It's a struggle to even find results on the cricket sites. I know its a hard sell trying to grab the public imagination with a 3 team tournament but Ireland desperately needs that tier between club and international cricket.

Peadar06

To find results??? Did you even look at the CI website. IP Series

Peter

CorsendonkX

Peadar06 wrote: »

To find results??? Did you even look at the CI website. IP Series

Peter

Hi Peter
Thanks for that. I was more referring to sites such as Cricinfo, BBC Cricket page, Cricbuzz etc, The Cricket Ireland page I checked at the time of my OP hadn't updated results for July. The Irish sports pages coverage seems to be non-existent too. AFAIK this is the only inter provincial thread here and your the only poster to respond so far, that in a way shows how the tournament has grabbed the imagination of club cricketers.

TrueDub

CorsendonkX wrote: »

Hi Peter
Thanks for that. I was more referring to sites such as Cricinfo, BBC Cricket page, Cricbuzz etc, The Cricket Ireland page I checked at the time of my OP hadn't updated results for July. The Irish sports pages coverage seems to be non-existent too. AFAIK this is the only inter provincial thread here and your the only poster to respond so far, that in a way shows how the tournament has grabbed the imagination of club cricketers.

I've attended a few of the games and followed each one on the web, using the ball-by-ball commentary on the CricketEurope site, and reading the summaries on cricketireland.ie and cricketleinster.ie.

I can't speak for anyone else, but it's grabbed my attention. Judging by the traffic on other fora, it's grabbed a few others too.

CorsendonkX

TrueDub wrote: »

I've attended a few of the games and followed each one on the web, using the ball-by-ball commentary on the CricketEurope site, and reading the summaries on cricketireland.ie and cricketleinster.ie.

I can't speak for anyone else, but it's grabbed my attention. Judging by the traffic on other fora, it's grabbed a few others too.

Fair enough maybe this cricket forum is dead compared to other Irish cricket forums. Do you know what the match attendance figures are like?

TrueDub

CorsendonkX wrote: »

Fair enough maybe this cricket forum is dead compared to other Irish cricket forums. Do you know what the match attendance figures are like?

Afraid not.

This forum has traditionally been more focused on international cricket, with club/province/county cricket not really being discussed too much.

There is of course no prohibition on discussing club/province/county cricket, and I'd be delighted if people started talking about it.

minitrue

I bit my tongue initially about replying to this thread, but here goes.

CorsendonkX wrote: »

AFAIK this is the only inter provincial thread here

There was http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056975466 anyway.

The attendance at those Leinster T20s was mediocre, maybe a couple of hundred all told (counting everyone at the ground including 36 players + managers/stewards/selectors/presidents/organisers/chefs/barstaff/umpires/scorers and everyone else on "official" business not paying in). The scheduling of those games appalled me with them played all day on a Friday and the last game starting at 5pm, hardly conducive to bringing out the numbers. Playing them on 2 Friday's with a 6pm start time, or on a weekend/bank holiday if they insisted on a single day, would have given it a hope of drawing a respectable crowd.

Then you had them charging in. In a few years, if they had an established competition that has been bringing in the crowds, then they could probably charge in. But in the first year, on a weekday, with little idea how many might attend? And BTW I'm 99% certain that the host club had nothing to do with this.

It's not the only thing I think had been badly thought out. I would have gone for an absolute minimum of a 4-day match for the first class wannabe tournament. I might have gone for 5-day with a 6th reserve day but perhaps there would be good reason to keep it capped at 4-day in which case I would have had at least 1 if not 2 reserve days. With the Irish weather (and the H&S predilection for declaring outfields unplayable) a straight 4-day would probably see less then 50% of games getting 3 days of play. With only 3-days the weather should be expected to make a win a very rare thing.

So had I been the czar, I probably would have gone for a format where on a Friday a team arrives and plays a T20 evening game (17:30 start, 20:10 finish). Saturday the rest day left alone for club cricket, Sunday-Thursday the 2-innings game (Thursday the reserve day to make up lost overs) and the second Friday the 50 overs with the latest possible start (maybe 13:30 so a half day from work would let you see all or most of it). Each side having to host 2 such weeks with encounters every second week spread over 11 weeks from June to August.

If it extended out to 4 sides then you would have each side hosting 3 weeks and could leave it take 11 or 12 weeks depending whether they went for all sides playing simultaneously or each week having some cricket (with Fridays as double days in the above format, though they could move the T20s instead into a couple of weeks to keep the logistics easier if required).

Ultimately though I think the story of this years will be that Leinster were too strong compared to the others and I suspect we will be seeing the return of North and South Leinster next year, either bringing it up to 4 teams or (unlikely) with the NCU and NWCU combining into an Ulster side. I think they should probably stick with the current sides though and put it up to the NCU/NWCU to raise their standards rather then pulling down the level a little and making it that much less likely for it to get First Class status which must be the aim as the step to Test status.

D3PO

CorsendonkX wrote: »

Hi Peter
Thanks for that. I was more referring to sites such as Cricinfo, BBC Cricket page, Cricbuzz etc, The Cricket Ireland page I checked at the time of my OP hadn't updated results for July. The Irish sports pages coverage seems to be non-existent too. AFAIK this is the only inter provincial thread here and your the only poster to respond so far, that in a way shows how the tournament has grabbed the imagination of club cricketers.

Not really I read your post and tutted in disgust as it was easy to find the results on the CI site. To the point I didn't even dignify it with a reply.

CorsendonkX

D3PO wrote: »

Not really I read your post and tutted in disgust as it was easy to find the results on the CI site. To the point I didn't even dignify it with a reply.

Yet you replied now

D3PO

CorsendonkX wrote: »

Yet you replied now

I replied to the point you made that this wasn't a forum interested in the interpros because nobody was replying to your original post. Jut because somebody doesn't reply doesn't mean they are not interested.