History
In the years of this century to date, the twenty over a side game (or T20 as it is now called) has become extremely popular at all levels of cricket. We now have a World Cup at this level and richly sponsored tournaments in various parts of the world. It is all too seldom mentioned that in the middle of the last century, long before the above developments, Leinster had such a competition.
In 1952, the Pembroke club organised what was then called a midweek league consisting of 20 over a side matches played on midweek evenings. Not every senior club took part but there was sufficient interest for the competition to continue. In 1954 one of the main organisers, Alan Murray, who had played over 300 senior games for Pembroke from the 1920s to the 50s, presented a trophy which continues to the present day.
Gradually the number of clubs taking part increased. However although Alan Murray was for many years a delegate and subsequently a vice-president of the Leinster Cricket Union, it did not become an official Leinster competition until the mid-1970s. For some twenty years, it was organised by the Pembroke club in the person of Harry Hill who was of course also a longstanding Pembroke player LCU delegate and President.
Format
The original format of the competition was that teams competing were drawn into two sections. Each team played the others in its section once. Points were awarded for wins/ties and the winners of each section played a final. At some point, a semi-final round was introduced. In 1977 the competition became an official LCU competition. A straight knockout format was adopted with restriction of 6 overs per bowler ensuring that had to be used. In 1998 the limit was reduced to five overs per bowler.
In 1999 it was agreed to experiment with a format of four sections, a round robin of matches in each section with the four section winners qualifying for two semi-finals. However this was not deemed a success and the format reverted to a straight knock-out the following year.
One of the attractions of the competition, to which players referred for many years, was having a competitive midweek match as against an ordinary net practice. Gradually however the attraction of midweek matches waned and in 2005 the format was changed to have games played at weekends. Teams were drawn into sections with round robins on weekend dates leading to a “Finals Day” on which semi-finals and final would be played. Suggestions that this format would attract an increased number of spectators, who might not normally attend cricket matches, proved unfounded. The format did however have some attractions but also threw up some problems. The number of teams involved did not always lend itself to evenly sized sections and some midweek evening matches were still necessary. Also, weather problems caused either total washout of round robin days or matches having to be reduced to somewhat meaningless five over thrashes. After a few years the format moved back to midweek for most games with only the Finals Day at a weekend. Eventually this too was abandoned and all matches returned to being midweek.
After a discussion at the first club day in October 2016, the OCC agreed to look at the possibility of moving the competition to weekends again. It was felt that if all matches could be at weekends it would be attractive. There was some concern that achieving this would involve serious fixture congestion if both the existing league and cup competitions were also to continue in their present form. After much discussion, a way of doing it was achieved. This depended on there being fifteen teams in the competition. This would allow three dates of five round robins with three teams in each. In this way each team would play six matches with no-one playing someone twice and all clubs hosting a round robin. There would be a single league table and the top eight teams from the round robin would go forward to quarterfinals. These would have to be midweek but would lead to a Finals Day on a weekend date. Looking at the then Divisions 1 and 2, it was clear that Dublin University would be unable to enter as their season would be over. However Cork County agreed to participate on a trial basis and so the necessary fifteen team format was achieved. Fortunately the weather was kind on all dates and the experiment was deemed a success.
It was hoped to repeat the format in 2018. The involvement of fifteen teams was clearly vital. Cork County indicated that they would be unable to continue but it was agreed that a Munster selection would take their place. Although North Kildare were dropping out of league Division 2, it was hoped that they might be able to continue in this competition at least for 2018. Unfortunately this has not now proved possible. Since fixtures had been made, the competition will be played as planned but obviously some further thought will have to go into future years. One change that was mooted for 2018 related to the quarter-final draw. In 2017 the top eight teams based on the round robin results went into an open quarter final draw. This could be carried out within twenty-four hours of the completion of the round robin matches. The desire from clubs was to have the whole tournament completed by mid-July. A system of ranking the teams one to eight and having the ties based on that ranking would have meant net run rate calculations having to be made once full details of all the round robin results were submitted. It was felt that this might cause difficulties as the pairings and particularly the venues would not immediately be known. It would hinder the desire to complete the competition mid-season. It was decided not to do it for the first experimental year but to consider it thereafter.
Winners
As mentioned above, for the first twenty five years of its existence, the competition was not organised by the Leinster Cricket Union. The only record of winners are the names engraved on the trophy and occasional references in the newspapers of the day. Thus there are quite a few gaps. If any club has information on the winners for the following years, it would be received with thanks – 1957,‘58,’61,’62,’63,’67,’73.
Of the 59 years that are recorded, Pembroke are the leading winners with 9, closely followed by Clontarf, Merrion and YMCA each of whom have 8 and Malahide with 7. Pembroke’s record comes principally from the early years of the competition. Only 2 of their wins come after 1971. In 1954, the first year there was an actual trophy, they did the treble of Senior League, Senior Cup and Alan Murray Cup. The only other recorded instances of this are by YMCA in 1986 and 1990. Most of Malahide’s wins were also in the earlier years with only one since 1978. By contrast, Merrion and YM’s records come through later periods of dominance. YM had six wins between 1986 and 1993 while Merrion’s first success came only in 1996 which became the first year of a four in a row.
There was a time when clubs outside the “Senior” grade competed, mainly the then emerging Fingal clubs. A Fingal selected side also competed for some years and won the trophy in 1975 and ’76. A Midland League selection also entered for a time but without similar success.
The Present
The round robin matches in this year’s competition commence on Saturday next and run for the rest of this month. It seems that the glorious weather we have enjoyed in the past few weeks will be past but let us hope that the skies remain clear enough to ensure an enjoyable series of games. A larger gap than last year is then planned with Friday evening quarterfinals in the third week of July and the Finals day on the August bank holiday weekend.