Northern Districts players celebrate winning the 2024/25 Plunket Shield. Photo: www.photosport.nz
The centenary season of the Plunket Shield men's first class cricket competition will start on 18 November.
The Shield was introduced in 1906 and originally competed for on a challenge basis.
The inaugural season of first-class competition was 1921-22 when the historic Shield was first contested over a round-robin format by all New Zealand's first-class teams.
The centenary season was officially confirmed by NZC statistician and Almanack editor Francis Payne, who noted the complex nature of defining domestic cricket seasons in Aotearoa.
"The first game regarded as first-class in New Zealand was in 1863-64 and that was a retrospective ruling, as there had been inter-provincial matches before then that weren't considered to the same standard," he said in a statement from New Zealand Cricket.
"The Plunket Shield was first awarded in 1906, by the Governor of New Zealand, Lord Plunket, and was given to Canterbury as the association with the best record that season.
"The 1921-22 summer was the start of the men's domestic first-class competition as we know it, with the Plunket Shield competed for on a seasonal basis featuring four of today's six Major Associations, with Central Districts (1950-51) and Northern Districts (1956-57) later additions.
"Fast forward to 2025 and, accounting for the five suspended seasons during World War 2 (1939-1945), the upcoming summer is the 100th season of the men's first-class competition, known as the Plunket Shield.
"It's a significant milestone for the game in this country and one worth celebrating."
Payne noted the competition had undergone a number of name changes during its evolution, at one stage named the Shell Trophy and later the State Championship. The short-lived Shell Conference in the late nineties was a separate first-class competition that ran parallel to the Shell Trophy.
New Zealand Cricket has designed a special commemorative logo to mark the 100th season and will also unveil a Plunket Shield all-time XI as part of centenary celebrations leading into and during the coming season.
In the opening round champions Northern Districts play Canterbury, Central Districts play Auckland and Wellington play Otago.
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