Inter-Provincial Trophy
Inter-Provincial Trophy: participating teams
Munster Reds
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Inter-Provincial Trophy: Twenty20 cricket home tournament in Ireland
The Inter-Provincial Trophy is an internal professional cricket championship that was formed in 2013. The tournament involves four sports teams representing different provinces of Ireland. The matches of this championship are held in a format with a limited number of overs (Twenty20 status). The responsibility for conducting the IPT lies with the Irish Cricket Union. To date, the most titled team is the Leinster Lightning Cricket Club. Read our article about the popular Irish sports championship.
Inter-Provincial Trophy – tournament overview
The Irish Cricket Union (Cricket Ireland) is the national leading sports body that manages all cricket activities in the country. Officially, the Union was formed in 1923. Since 1993, Ireland has been an associate member of the International Cricket Council, and since 2017, the country has the status of a full member of the ICC. Since then, Ireland has the right to field a national team for international test tournaments and hold first-class championships in the country.
Today, the ICU organizes all domestic cricket championships. In 2013, the Union opened a competition called the Inter-Provincial Series. This series includes three professional tournaments: IP Championship (first-class format), IP Cup (format with a limited number of overs, List A status) and IP Trophy.
The Inter-Provincial Trophy is a championship held in a format with a limited number of overs, the status of Twenty20. Such matches are considered one of the shortest and last only 3 hours. One game consists of 2 innings, in each of which 20 overs are played.
The first season of IPT was held from June 21 to July 21, 2013. Three teams took part in it:
- Leinster Lightning is a club from the self-titled province of Leinster with a population of 2.5 million people;
- Northern Knights is a club representing the territory of Northern Ireland with a population of 1.5 million people;
- North West Warriors is a club from the province of Ulster with a population of 2 million people.
The tournament consisted of 4 matches. Each team played with each other twice: one home game and one away game. The Leinster Lightning club won the debut victory at the tournament with 6 points.
Inter-Provincial Trophy-results of other seasons
Initially, other cricket sports unions – Munster Cricket Union and Connacht Cricket Union-could not field their domestic teams for the IPT. This was due to the lack of professional training of the players.
However, in 2017, the Munster Reds team showed up for the tournament, which was still the weakest club.
Since the tournament appeared not so long ago, we will make a table with the results of the championship of all seasons:
| Season | Winner | 2nd place | 3rd place | 4th place |
| 2013 | Leinster Lightning | Northern Knights | North West Warriors | |
| 2014 | North West Warriors | Leinster Lightning | Northern Knights | |
| 2015 | Leinster Lightning | North West Warriors | Northern Knights | |
| 2016 | Leinster Lightning | North West Warriors | Northern Knights | |
| 2017 | Leinster Lightning | North West Warriors | Northern Knights | Munster Reds |
| 2018 | Leinster Lightning | Northern Knights | North West Warriors | Munster Reds |
| 2019 | Northern Knights | Leinster Lightning | North West Warriors | Munster Reds |
| 2020 | Leinster Lightning | Northern Knights | Munster Reds | North West Warriors |
Due to the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the 2020 season was postponed (instead of June, the tournament was held at the end of August). The competitions were held in compliance with all epidemiological norms.
In 2021, the Inter-Provincial Trophy has undergone changes. Now the competitions are held in three rounds. The number of matches has been increased from 12 to 18 (there are six matches in each round):
- The 1st round was held from June 18-21;
- The 2nd round was held from June 25-27;
- The 3rd round is scheduled for September 17-19, 2021.
The last season of the IPT has already been remembered for a unique moment: the Leinster Lightning club lost two matches in a row for the first time in the championship history (from Northern Knights and North West Warriors).
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