New format for Alan Murray T20 Cup

In response to widespread concerns from players, the 2017 Alan Murray Cup - Cricket Leinster's premier T20 competition has been given a new format for the 2017 season.

At last autumn's Club Day, two issues were highlighted in connection to the tournament:

1. That the competition is not valued by Cricket Leinster. It has very much been the poor relation, but in order to increase the quality of T20 played in the province, the competition needed to promoted in the calendar, rather than inserted as an after thought.

2. That players found it impossible to travel on week day evenings to matches, meaning that there was no chance for any preparation before matches - leading to a poor quality. Matches had to be played at weekends.

With that in mind, the OCC has now launched details of the new competition, which will be played from late June to early July, with Finals Day being in Pembroke CC on Saturday 22nd July.

The OCC"s official description of the format is as follows:

"The format is three rounds of round robin matches. In each round, fifteen teams will be in groups of three playing at five grounds on the same day, Thus each team will play two matches in each round, six matches in all. The groups are arranged so that no-one will play the same team twice. The format has been designed using the letters A to O. These have then been allocated to teams through an open draw.

 As all matches are to be in Dublin, only fourteen grounds are available. Thus one ground will be used twice.  Which ground this is emerges from the draw.

For the round robin matches points will be awarded as follows

Win 4 pts, Tie 2 pts, No result 1 pt. Following the round robin matches, the eight teams with most points will go forward to the quarter-finals. Where there is a tie on points between some teams such that the final place(s) in the top eight cannot be fully determined, the matter will be resolved as follows

1. Where all the teams involved in the tie have played each other, the matter will be resolved by the points obtained in these matches.
2. Where all the teams involved have played each other but a) does not resolve the matter, the teams will be ranked in terms of net run rate in these matches. If this does not still fully resolve the matter, net run rate over all the matches each team has played will be used.
3. Where all the teams involved have not played each other or where a) and/or b) does not resolve the matter, it will be decided by net run rate over all matches each team has played.
4. In any case where the matter is not fully resolved by a), b),c) it will decided by use of a draw by the OCC.

There will be an open draw for the quarter finals with the teams drawn first being at home. These matches will be played on a midweek evening date set by OCC. A reserve date has been set by OCC to cater for a no result in any of these matches.  Should play not be possible on the reserve date, a bowl-out will determine the winner.

The Semi-finals and Final will be held on a “Finals Day” with date and venue set by the OCC.

The full regulations for the Competition will be published on the LCU website in the normal way.

ALAN MURRAY CUP

Groupings

Day 1  - Teams                                         ABC         DEF          GHI          JKL        MNO        

               Grounds                       A               F                G           J                     M

Day 2  - Teams                                         ADG        BEL         CFO        JMH       KNI

               Grounds                       D                B              O                H                I

Day 3  - Teams                                         AEH           BDN        CGJ           FKM        ILO

               Grounds                       E                  N               C                K               O          

Details of Fixtures:

 A v B,C,D,G,E,H       B v A,C,E,L,D,N      C v A,B,F,O,G,J      D v E,F,A,G,B,N        E v D,F,B,L,A,H

F v D,E,C,O,K.M       G v H,I,A,D,C,J       H v G,I,J,M,A,E      I v  G,H,K,N,L.O        J v K,L,M,H,C,G

                 L v J,K,B,E,I,O           M v N,O,J,H,F,K     N v M,O,K,I,B,D    O v M,N,C,F,I,L

Draw

A Phoenix                               B Rush                                       C Balbriggan                                            D Clontarf

E The Hills                               F Terenure                             G Railway Union                                   H Merrion

I North County                     J Pembroke                           K North Kildare                                     L Cork County

M Malahide                          N Leinster                               O YMCA

Dates

Round Robins – Sat 24 June, Sat 1 July, Sat 8 July

Quarter Finals  - Wed 12^th Julu (Reserve Wed 19^th July)

Final – Sat 22 July at Pembroke C.C.