New Zealand's Provincial A sides will have an extra opponent during the annual competition this summer.

The New Zealand Under-19 team will take part in the competition for the first time.

The move has been made in the season between the biennial Under-19 World Cups and is something of a trial to see if it might become a more regular fixture on the New Zealand programme.

This year's A tournament will be played, for all but two rounds, at the New Zealand High Performance Centre at Lincoln University.

The two rounds not played there will be played between neighbouring teams, Auckland-Northern Districts, Central Districts-Wellington and Canterbury-Otago, on a home and away basis at a time to be decided by the respective associations. Points from all games will go towards the overall competition.

New Zealand Cricket's operations manager John Reid said the decision to stage the tournament at Lincoln University was a cost effective move, it would reduce the travel expenses while providing cheaper accommodation.

"Many of the associations have been struggling to find enough high quality venues to host international, State men's and women's and A games. And the A games have tended to be the poor relations.

"Many of the facilities didn't provide quality surfaces for player development. All of the associations regard the A series as a development competition rather than a status thing and felt that if we are looking to move players towards first-class cricket then it would be better to assess players in most consistent conditions," he said.

The home and away games were seen as one way of easing some players back into the first-class programme later in the season at a time when only club cricket might be available to them.

The under-19 side will play all their games during the tournament.

The national under-19 tournament will be reduced to two-day and one-day games. It was felt the two-day games should replace the three-day matches to try and produce more hard-nosed one innings games while also having a separate one-day competition.

© CricInfo