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THE Evoke Super Series kicks off on Sunday when Typhoons meet Dragons at Oak Hill in the opening 50-over fixture. The programme will run over the following seven weeks with each side playing the other three times, mostly in Oak Hill, with Dragons playing their home games in Lisburn and Waringstown.

The 20-over series follows hard on that, with three festivals hosted by Railway Union, Bready and Merrion.

It’s a new look for the tournament, which was the best thing to happen to women’s domestic cricket in years when it was started in 2014, helping to spark the upsurge in fortunes of the national team in recent seasons.

The players love it.

‘The Super Series is the perfect way to bridge the gap between club cricket and internationals,’ says Typhoons all-rounder Laura Delany. ‘You’re playing a better standard and you can work on things you’ve been doing in training.’

Leah Paul, who captained Scorchers last summer and is now with Typhoons, also found the tournament useful in making the jump up from Merrion to Ireland: ‘In the Super Series international players can try things out and upcoming players can get exposure to a higher level. It is a really important platform for young players to get noticed. And the more we play the more we can learn.’

Inter-provincial or inter-union games were the traditional bridge between club cricket and the Ireland team. There were ad hoc women’s inter-,pros in the 1950s and ‘60s but the modern revival of the game in the late 1970s led to a formal inter-pro competition.

The first games between North and South Leinster were held in 1980, and the following season Ulster and Munster joined in, although the southerners only lasted three summers.

The first Ulster captain was Donna Armstrong, who went on to play 20 times for Ireland and is the new President of Cricket Ireland. Despite having three Ireland captains in their ranks in Anne Linehan, Davina Pratt and Claire Shillington, Ulster went into decline and stopped playing more than 20 years ago. North v South Leinster continued for a while but petered out in 2010.

In 2014 Cricket Ireland started the Super Series as a bridge from club to international, but having sides based on union was impractical as the overwhelming preponderance of talent was now based in Dublin. In recent years that has changed with a growth in club cricket in the north and last season a dozen women from Ulster played in the Super Series, four playing on the recent Ireland tour.

This season the Dragons squad comprises 15 northern players, plus Orla Prendergast, Arlene Kelly and overseas players Ella Marsh (Australia) and Bella Armstrong (NZ).

Laura Delany thinks the games are important for identifying talent. ‘Jane Maguire is someone who definitely benefited from playing Super Series,’ she says. ‘She was superb in the recent qualifiers. She was able to bowl long spells for the Scorchers, trying out new variations, which she brought to Ireland games.’

Leah Paul points at Freya Sargent, who took eight wickets against England last summer: ‘She had two or three good years in Super Series and then was ready for a breakout season with Ireland – playing in the Super Series definitely helped her do that.’

The biggest success story for the Super Series pathway is Amy Hunter. Growing up in Belfast, she ‘played pretty much exclusively with boys until I was about 11. My first all-girls game was actually in the Super 3s.’

She had showed enough promise to be picked for Dragons against Typhoons at Oak Hill in July 2017 – when she was just 11½. Extensive research has not found any younger player in List A cricket anywhere in the world!

Delany also thinks the competition is really important for the future progress of women’s cricket here, and relishes facing imported pros: ‘Club cricket is great but the standards are still on the rise. In the Super Series you get to take your game to the next level. We play against the overseas players and its very beneficial to test yourself against them, and they help make the Super Series more competitive.’

The Super Series has widened the player pool and given plenty of players the opportunity to show what they can do. Scorchers have won six of the eight trophies since the formats were split, but this year have lost Paul, Una Raymond-Hoey and Jane Maguire, the latter now captaining Typhoons. Maguire and sister Aimee, who both made their series debuts at 15, are other examples of the benefits of the Super Series.

Paul is looking forward to the new campaign, and facing a new set of overseas players, who also include Australian Ciara Gibson and Robyn Searle (South Africa): ‘New people bring a different challenge. We all know each other really well from playing with and against all summer. But facing players with different skill sets adds energy to the competition.’

The Evoke Super Series starts Sunday 4 May 2025. Full details at: www.cricketireland.ie.