Announcement: Provincial Cricket Structure Season 13

As discussed in this thread, the efforts to keep up simming provincial cricket every weekend after the mid-week BS/ALC/HC/HP games have proven a failure. There has been an imminent need to move provincial cricket for next season to its own window, and it'll all be happening post-club-season.

However, this needs to be balanced against the desire to keep the length of each season down. Provincial cricket will now fit into a 6-week window rather than having to be 18 weeks by itself.

After the Bannerman Shield final next season, the traditional three game series (NSW v Queensland, New Zealand v British Isles, Victoria v Asia) will run in a one week period.

The Provincial Championship, Rossleigh Trophy and Provincial Second Class tournaments will start the following week, in a much more reduced format. The changes for each tournament are listed below.

Provincial Championship - (5D, First Class cricket)
- Will run as two divisions of four teams each next season.
- The top four teams (Britain counting as England) in this season's Provincial Championship will be in Division 1
- The bottom three teams in this season's Provincial Championship, plus Celtic Provinces, will be in Division 2.
- Each team will play each other team in its own division once, in a three round competition.
- At the end of the season, there will be a final between 1st and 2nd in each division to determine the champions.
- The team that finishes 4th in Division 1 will play the Division 2 champions for the right to promotion for the following season.

Rossleigh Trophy (1D, List A cricket)
- Will run as North and South conferences.
- North Conference will be contested between Celtic Provinces, Northern England, Southern England, Asia and Queensland.
- South Conference will be contested between NSW Country, NSW City, New Zealand, Victoria and Nullarbor.
- Each team will play each other team in its own division once, in a five round competition.
- At the end of the competition, there will be a South final and a North final to determine the regional champions. Afterwards there will be a Rossleigh Trophy final between the two regional champions.

Provincial Second XI Championship (5D, Second Class cricket)
- New competition name needed; yet to be determined.
- Will run as North and South conferences.
- North Conference will be contested between Celtic Provinces A*, Northern England A, Southern England A, Asia A and Queensland A.
- South Conference will be contested between NSW Country A, NSW City A, New Zealand A, Victoria A and Nullarbor.
- Each team will play each other team in its own division once, in a three round competition.
- At the end of the competition, there will be two semi finals (North 1 v South 2; and South 1 v North 2) and then a final (winners of the two semis) to determine the premiers.

*Celtic Provinces A may or may not field a side in the new competition; it is yet to be determined.


So tl;dr : provincial shit will be at the end of the season next season instead of ongoing, and mid-range provincial sides now have a incentive to finish 4th this season in the PC otherwise they'll get relegated.

 

Yeah I mentioned those:

After the Bannerman Shield final next season, the traditional three game series (NSW v Queensland, New Zealand v British Isles, Victoria v Asia) will run in a one week period.

They've been moved to post-season, but their structure won't change other than Celts being eligible for the British Isles side and Skippos not playing for NZ anymore which was already on the cards.

Nah it's a seven week window because it's one week for Origin/Borisc/JTC, one week for finals and stuff at the end, and five in the middle to get all the Rossleigh Trophy (OD) rounds in. Five teams per conference is a five round competition, even though the PC is only a three round competition. I may look at getting a couple of those OD rounds in during the Origin/Borisc/JTC period though so we can save ourselves two weeks; we'll see.

 

Yeah; should make things more interesting for you as an Asian player really.

Realistically Asia aren't going to be good enough to win the PC for ages if ever, especially if it stayed in its current format of being so long, but with a bit of improvement and some luck you could win Division 2, or at least make the final of it, and that'd be a great aim for you guys.

It'll also avoid total mismatches like New Zealand v Celtic Provinces which would frankly just be boring to sim and waste time in the season.

 

Something that we won't really need to decide for a while but I thought I'd pose it to people now - I've got it in there that we have a promotion/relegation play-off game between Division 1 spooners and Division 2 premiers.

Do people like the idea of a play-off, or do they think it should just be automatic. I like the idea that you can defend your place by beating off the challengers, but at the same time I think it'd keep the comp fresh and interesting if we had a guaranteed small change in which teams were in which division each season.

 

It's an interesting point. I have them split regional because they have the exact same sides as the Rossleigh Trophy comp, which is regional, so I thought it logical they could follow the same draw.

I think it'd get slightly confusing for people to follow if you were playing against three different provincial sides in three different comps on the same week, and had your First XI in Division 2 while your Second XI was in Division 1.

Furthermore, as it's a development competition, I think it'd be better to have new players developing at roughly the same standard of competition, rather than facing a totally different standard of opposition during their development faze depending on which province they were from.

 

If we added one week to the season then they could play 6 games (each opposition twice) instead of playing 3 games and having 2 weeks of byes despite their Second XI playing. Maybe that's the way to go.

 

Victoria v Asia could become the most over-killed game of the season. Playing each other 5 times in 4 weeks if they drew each other in Round 1, despite not playing any Div 1 teams at all

 

Just, I think. But if you had an injury then no. It's why it's a bit up in the air.

The problem with no fielding an A side would be that any new members you had sign up would be slightly disadvantaged in terms of development. Could just have them play for Northern England A I suppose but NEA might not want to use their spots on them.

 

Believe it or not I actually deliberated over this. There doesn't seem to be a set rule for it in English, but this theory seemed to make more sense to me than anything else:

And given England is thought of its own unit - "England" - rather than the two halves of it being part of "the Englands", it tends to suggest Northern England and Southern England are the way to go.

Marcuss is semi-officially in charge of English cricket here though so if he wants to change that then he can.

 

Yeah I agree.

North and South have other meanings on CricSim too so it'd remove any possible confusion.