Cricket: Plunket Shield returns

The Plunket Shield has been dusted off and will reappear on the domestic cricket calendar for the first time in 35 years.

New Zealand Cricket (NZC) has decided to award the shield to the winners of the national four-day competition this summer.

And it wants to make the arrangement permanent, with chief executive Justin Vaughan saying the naming rights for the four-day competition were no longer for sale.

The competition is without a sponsor this summer, leading NZC to look to its past.

The shield was a constant on the domestic landscape from 1906 until it was last competed for in 1974-75, before commercialism took over and sponsors' names were attached to the domestic competition.

"The reintroduction of the Plunket Shield allows us to acknowledge the traditions of the game and at the same time appropriately celebrate and promote our four-day first-class competition," Vaughan said yesterday.

"For the first time in a decade we find ourselves in a different sponsorship environment - and this gives us the opportunity to restore real heritage back into our first-class competition through the Plunket Shield."

Vaughan said NZC was committed to retaining the shield for the four-day first-class competition into the future.

"The naming rights for this competition are not for sale."

The last captain to win the shield was Glenn Turner, who led Otago to victory during the 1974-75 season.

He said it was wonderful to have the shield back in circulation.

"The four-day game remains the pinnacle of our domestic cricket, so it will be great to see it back as the focus of the competition."

- NZPA