Occasionally I go on Cricket Archive adventures and find something I never knew about but should have done.
A couple of days ago, this happened when I learned about the Hawke Cup in New Zealand: something that I undoubtedly should already have known about, but which had until then passed me by. It's taken me until today to find a free waking moment to write about it.
It is named for Lord Hawke, who donated the trophy and specified that it be competed for amongst the "minor associations" in New Zealand. The Plunket Shield, which had started a few years prior, was competed for by Auckland, Canterbury, Otago and Wellington. Hawke's Bay would briefly appear either side of the First World War, but they spent most of their time as a "minor association". Teams representing Northern Districts and Central Districts would not come to be until the 1950s, and both teams were loose confederations of several "minor associations".
The Plunket Shield was originally decided on a "challenge match" basis with between one and four games held per year. The titles won in this period are no longer counted towards a team's official tally. The "challenge matches" were abolished and replaced with a round-robin league in 1921, and it has remained so for over 100 years.
But what if a competition had been founded with challenge matches in mind, and simply never given them up. Perhaps it twisted itself into a ridiculous byzantine shape just to retain them. That competition would be the Hawke Cup. There are currently 21 Hawke Cup teams, split into four zones of six, six, four and five teams respectively. The idea is that there will be a round-robin in each Zone, and then the winners will go through to the challenge matches*. The exception to this is in the current Hawke Cup holder's zone, where they progress regardless, and the best team that isn't them progresses to the challenge matches. The holders will then face off against each of the four challengers in an attempt to retain the Hawke Cup over the winter. For the challenging team to take the Hawke Cup, they need to either win a home challenge outright, or win an away challenge on first innings (or outright).
Nelson once held the Hawke Cup for seven years, defeating 28 challenges. The current holders are Canterbury Country, which means that two of the four Zone 3 teams will progress to the challenge matches this year.
I feel reasonably comfortable saying that only cricket could come up with something this silly. I love it.