Countries New Zealand Format One-day cricket Number of teams 6 | Administrator New Zealand Cricket First tournament 1971/72 | |
Tournament format Round-robin, preliminary finals and final | ||
The New Zealand limited-overs cricket trophy is the main domestic List A limited overs cricket competition in New Zealand. Previous sponsor State Insurance did not renew naming rights in 2009, resulting in the competition being renamed the New Zealand Cricket one-day competition. The competition was renamed the Ford Trophy following a partnership between New Zealand Cricket and Ford Motor Company in 2011.
Since its commencement in 1971/72 the competition has had a number of sponsors, each one exercising its own naming rights. These have been:
Format
Between 1971-72 and 1979-80 the competition was played on a knock-out basis with a preliminary round, semi finals and a final. From 1980-81 to 1984-85 the competition was played in a league format with all six teams playing each other once and the top two teams playing off in a final. Between 1985-86 and 1988-89 the side on top of the league after a single round robin were declared champions. Semi Finals and Finals were re-introduced from 1989-90 onwards. From 1993-94 teams played each other home and away (10 matches) in the league format. From the 2009/10 season onward teams play each other once (five games) followed by three randomly selected teams a second time, forming an eight-game round robin.
Games in the competition consist of 50 6-ball overs. The competition was originally 40 8-ball overs per innings until 1979-80 when overs throughout the world were standardised to 6 balls.