The 2020 Inter-Provincial Cup was the eighth edition of the

Inter-Provincial Cup The Inter-Provincial Cup is a limited-overs cricket tournament in Ireland between the four leading cricketing provinces of Ireland. The tournament was held for the first time in 2013 across venues in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of ...

, a

List A cricket List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the num ...

competition that was played in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

during September 2020. It was the fourth edition of the competition to be played with List A status.

Leinster Lightning Leinster Lightning is an Ireland, Irish inter-provincial cricket team. They participate in the Inter-Provincial Championship, Inter-Provincial Cup and Inter-Provincial Trophy. The team is based in Dublin and is managed by Cricket Leinster. Hist ...

were the defending champions. The first two scheduled matches of the tournament, both between

North West Warriors North West Warriors is one of four provincial cricket teams in Ireland. Along with the Leinster Lightning, Northern Knights and Munster Reds, it makes up the Inter-Provincial Championship, Inter-Provincial Cup & Inter-Provincial Trophy. Th ...

and Northern Knights, were abandoned without a ball being bowled due to the weather. The next match saw Leinster Lightning beat Northern Knights by 91 runs, giving them a bonus point to lead the competition at the mid-way point. In the fourth fixture, Leinster Lightning beat North West Warriors by 62 runs, in a rain-affected match. The win, which included a bonus point, was enough to give Leinster an unassailable lead in the tournament, and their seventh consecutive title. Leinster Lightning went on to win their remaining two matches, finishing the tournament undefeated.

Background

The tournament was originally scheduled to take place from 8 May to 29 July 2020. However, on 26 March 2020,

Cricket Ireland Cricket Ireland (formerly the Irish Cricket Union) is the national Sport governing body, governing body for cricket on the island of Ireland (both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland), and oversees the national Ireland cricket team, men' ...

confirmed that domestic competitions would be pushed back to 28 May 2020 at the earliest, due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Government restrictions prevented any cricket, including training, from starting before June 2020. The Irish government announced a provisional date of 20 July 2020 for a possible restart of sporting fixtures in the country. Plans of a possible start of domestic cricket in Ireland, with matches taking place during August and September, were looked at in July 2020. On 22 July 2020, Cricket Ireland confirmed the revised fixtures for the tournament. On 15 August 2020, all the teams confirmed their squads for the tournament.

Points table

Fixtures

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References

External links

Series home at ESPN Cricinfo
{{DEFAULTSORT:2020 Inter-Provincial Cup Interprovincial Cup Inter-Provincial Cup seasons September 2020 sports events in Ireland