2019 Open Premier Season Structure Details

Just six weeks to go to the first weekend of the new IBI Corporate Finance Senior League Cup, which sees the start of the new formats for the 2019 Cricket Leinster Season.

After a wonderful summer of cricket and weather in 2018, the anticipation is building ahead of the new season for 2019. The top two Cricket Leinster Divisions have undergone an overhaul since last year after in-depth consultation with all the competing clubs led by the Cricket Committee. This has led to exciting and dynamic competition structures for 2019 which will be played in the following formats.

IBI Corporate Finance Senior League Cup 2019

This competition will replace the Leinster Senior Cup and replicate a similar format to that of the early season League Cup that was popular in the 90s and 2000s. It will be played from 20th April until the 8th of June with Dublin University CC playing in the full tournament.

• Two Groups of 7
• Top 2 in each group progress to Semi-Finals
• Winners of Semi-Finals will meet in the Senior League Cup Final held at The Hills to mark their 50th year as a club, the final will be live streamed
• Top 4 sides from each group advance to Premier League
• Bottom 3 sides from each group go to Championship
• All matches played in Coloured Clothing with White Ball and 50 Overs in length

The two groups were drawn by a seeded draw at the 2018 Cricket Leinster Club Day in November. To see the groups in full, please click here for Group A and here for Group B.

The fixtures for the tournament in full can be found on the new fixtures section of the website here.

LHW Financial Planning Premier League & Cricket Leinster Championship

The top two divisions of Leinster League cricket revert to the latter half of the season with the LHW Financial Planning Premier League. Cork County CC will take the place of Dublin University in this half of the season and will play in the Championship no matter where Dublin University CC finish in the League Cup.

• All Premier League matches in height of season
• New ‘Play-offs’ finish between top 4 sides to bring season to a thrilling climax in similar format to IPL & NFL playoffs
• Gives a grand final on September 7th to conclude Premier Season
• Live Streaming of Premier League Final held in Merrion Cricket Club, the 2018 Champions
• Championship format sees the 6 sides play each other in Home and Away matches to decide the Championship winner
• All matches played in White Clothing with Red Ball and 50 Overs in length

With the Premier League and Championship places being decided by the finishing positions from the League Cup, the specific fixtures are yet to be announced and will be arranged after the completion of the group stages of the League Cup in May. The fixture dates for the round are pre-assigned however and participating clubs have already been sent sample fixture dates.

LHK Insurance Alan Murray Cup

The Twenty20 competition dates all the way back to 1952 in what is one of the longest running Twenty20 competitions anywhere in the world. All 14 sides excluding Dublin University CC and Cork County CC, but with the addition of the Munster Heat, will take part in the LHK Insurance Alan Murray Cup. Each side will be in one group table which can be found here and all the sides will play 4 matches each over 2 weekends with the top 4 in the 15 team group table advancing to finals day on.

The fixtures have already been made and can be seen in full by clicking here. The Finals Day of the Competition will be held in the Phoenix Park for the first time in many years on 11th August at Phoenix Cricket Club.

For Divisions 3 - 17, the full league structures for each division were announced last month and you can find the structures here. Clubs are continuing to submit their final dates for fixtures and all division fixtures will be announced soon.

Below are the IBI Corporate Finance Senior League Cup fixtures in full.