The Bay team has five huge matches in the next three weeks as it seeks to become the challenger for the Hawke Cup – against holders Hawke's Bay in February. The Bay leads the points at this stage after matches played at the end of last summer that count towards the Hawke Cup.
The Hawke Cup is the competition for the premier district association or province in NZ. It is a three day match of tough cricket, so is not really a spectator sport, but is the premier prize for cricketing provinces.

Following the games for the Hawke Cup, there are three further matches after Christmas to decide the Fergus Hickey winners.
The Fergus Hickey competition is for the best team in Northern Districts.
Established in 1953 Northern Districts Cricket, or as we know it, ND Cricket, covers an extensive area from the far north, and in the south, Taumarunui and Poverty Bay/Wairoa. It excludes Auckland City from Manukau to Orewa.
In 1957 a ND team played its first first-class match against Auckland at Seddon Park and ND won.

ND Cricket is comprised of six district associations:

Northland
Counties-Manukau
Hamilton
Waikato Valley
Bay Of Plenty
Poverty Bay

These are the teams in competition with the Bay although not every team is played twice each year with just eight games per season. Who plays who is ranked on performance so the better teams face each other twice in the season.

The following teams have enough points to still make it through: BOP 12, Counties, 10, Hamilton 7 and Northland 6. The points for a one day, or first innings win are four points. For an outright win a team gets two more or a bonus point for a big win.
BOP is playing the other three contenders at the one day tournament in Taupo on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

With five matches remaining, and four points for each game, wins are vital for the Bay. Three wins would take the Bay to 24. Counties would need four wins to get to 26 (without outright or bonus points), Hamilton and Northland would need five wins to get to 27 and 26. BOP plays Counties twice in the five matches in the next three weeks, including in the last round, so wins against Counties are like double points.

If BOP wins two games at tournament it will be on 20 and one other side could get 12 points, which means only really Counties could pass the Bay and they would also have to beat a good side in Hamilton.

It is a very interesting three weeks for the Bay team with a big break to follow for the rep side.