It is end of exam time in the university calendar, and most of the crowd sitting on the steps of the pavilion at Trinity College, Dublin were barely aware of the cricket match being played in front of them.

As the students drank their beer in the evening sunshine, and compared notes of exams taken and summer holidays planned, the first three-day Interprovincial game between Leinster Lightning and North-West Warriors was entering the final four overs of play.

After bowling out the opposition for 153 in the second innings, Leinster Lightning needed 26 runs off 24 balls to win the match.

Outplayed for much of the game after being bowled out in their first innings for 191, the North West Warriors dug deep to deny their more experienced opponents the win.

Peter Connell took the wickets of Irish internationals Kevin O'Brien and Andrew Poynter in the first over, then Johnny Thompson, who also took two wickets, conceded just four runs off the final over to leave Leinster four runs short at 22-5.

North-West Warriors celebrated the draw like a win, but the match was more important for the statement of intent it sent out to the wider world of cricket.

Under its ambitious strategic plan, Ireland hope to be a Test-playing full member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) by 2020.

Crucial to that aspiration is the establishment of a first-class structure by 2015, where the best players on the island of Ireland can compete regularly in the long-form of the game.

The three-franchise, three-day Interpros are the pathway to that - Cricket Ireland (CI) anticipate that the ICC will judge the quality of these games over the next two years sufficient to grant the tournament first-class status.

CI have been encouraged by the support of the ICC Executive Board, which allocated Cricket Ireland US$500,000 per year from the Targeted Assistance and Performance Programme (TAPP) until 2015 to help Ireland narrow the gap between them and the Test-playing nations.

Leinster Lightning coach Trent Johnston hopes that regular Interprovincial three-day games will improve the quality and depth of the national side, but acknowledges that the players have much to learn about the different demands of multi-day cricket.

"Three-day cricket maybe is a culture shock but we dropped 13 catches in the game. The guys have not really played three-day cricket, so a lack of concentration could be to blame. But a high proportion of those drops were by senior players, so maybe it wasn't that," he said.

"But I believe the players are doing their best to make it as professional a scene as possible, and that behind the scenes it will continue to improve as well. It is only the first game, so I am sure it will."

Ireland coach Phil Simmons was in College Park each day to watch, and believes that regular three-day cricket will encourage players to adapt a Test match mentality.

"I hope that in the next game, the North-West Warriors will be looking to bat the 120 overs that Leinster did. I want to see players learning and to see players improving," he said.

North-West Warriors' batsman Niall McDonnell agrees that his side are embarking on a steep learning curve, but feels that regular participation in the long-form of the game will improve the standards of developing players.

"Three-day cricket is the only way that the North-West Union players can learn and start to catch up on Leinster Lightning and Northern Knights (the other Ulster-based franchise)," he said.

"For the young lads like Scott Campbell, Andrew McBrine and Ricky-Lee Dougherty, they could have another ten or 15 years playing best against best. That can only improve their game."

Ireland coach Simmons accepts that cricket still has some way to go to catch the public imagination of a country in which Gaelic Games dominate the summer months.

The Trinidadian is nonetheless confident that the game is steadily growing in popularity in Ireland and that casual onlookers like the students drinking beer on the Trinity College grass will one day be won over to the nuances of three-day cricket.

"Half of the people here don't know about cricket, but did you notice the big loud cheers for the catches in the final overs?" he said.

****This article first appeared on www.setanta.com and os reproduced by kind permission of the author.****