Cricket format First-class cricket Participants 8 | Tournament format(s) Round-robin Matches played 29 | |
Administrator(s) International Cricket Council Host(s) Various (home and away) | ||
The 2015–17 ICC Intercontinental Cup is the seventh edition of the ICC Intercontinental Cup, an international first-class cricket tournament between leading associate members of the International Cricket Council (ICC). The tournament is running from 2015 to 2017. It runs in parallel with the 2015–17 ICC World Cricket League Championship but with slightly different teams. As Ireland and Afghanistan have qualified for the ICC One Day International Championship ranking qualification process, they are replaced by Kenya and Nepal in the limited over event; however they continue to play the four-day event.
Contents
As a result of changes to the structure of international cricket announced by the ICC in January 2014, the winner of the 2015-17 Intercontinental Cup (and following editions of the tournament) will play four five-day matches against the bottom ranked Test nation (two home and two away matches), an event known as the 2018 ICC Test Challenge. Should the winner of the Intercontinental Cup go on to win the ICC Test Challenge they will become the 11th Test nation.
However, in February 2017 following an ICC Board meeting, changes were agreed in principle to expand the number of Test nations to twelve. Both Ireland and Afghanistan are likely to be granted Test status before the proposed 2018 ICC Test Challenge. The ICC are scheduled to agree the change at their next board meeting in April 2017.
Teams
The following are the 8 teams participating in the competition based on the results from 2011–13 ICC World Cricket League Championship, 2014 Cricket World Cup Qualifier & 2015 ICC World Cricket League Division Two.
Preparations
Of the eight teams participating in the 2015–17 ICC Intercontinental Cup, only Papua New Guinea has never played a first-class match before. Afghanistan, Ireland, Namibia, Scotland, The Netherlands and the UAE had all appeared before in the previous Intercontinental Cup of 2011-2013, while Hong Kong had last appeared in the 2005 Intercontinental Cup and last played in an international multi-day cricket tournament in late 2006 at the 2006/07 ACC Fast Track Countries Tournament.
Though never having played a first-class match, Papua New Guinea (PNG) have played two-day cricket in the South Australian Premier League in 2013 and 2014. Though finishing at the bottom of the league in both seasons, the experience seems to have hardened the team as they convincingly beat Hong Kong in a three-day match in Australia and one of PNG's openers admitted that participation in the league had been critical to exposing the players to multi-day cricket.
Fixtures
The breakdown of fixtures is as follows:
Points table
Round 1
The fixtures for round one were announced on 5 May 2015.
Round 2
The fixtures for round two were announced in August 2015.
Round 3
The fixtures for round three were announced in December 2015.
Round 4
The fixtures for round four were announced in April 2016.
Round 5
The fixture between Afghanistan and Ireland was announced by Cricket Ireland in July 2016. The fixture between Hong Kong and the Netherlands was announced by the Koninklijke Nederlandse Cricket Bond in December 2016. Cricket Scotland confirmed the venue for their fixture in February 2017.