With the ICC paving the way for a rare inclusive gathering of US stakeholders, the onus is on administrators to not only act on longstanding issues but lay out a meaningful and structured path, one that will be seriously adhered to, for the future
Peter Della Penna29-Aug-2015Saturday’s town hall meeting in Chicago might be designated as a general get-together for the various personalities involved in the US cricket community to share ideas about cricket, but such simplicity is significant for a US cricket gathering. The open door policy established by the ICC leadership that has set up the meeting means this will be one of the first genuinely open and inclusive gatherings that US cricket stakeholders have had in recent memory.In the past, such events as USACA AGMs that ostensibly were to be held for the benefit of all stakeholders instead have been notable for the presence of security guards stationed outside the doors, only allowing in the yes men allied to those in charge. While the yes men are expected to show up in numbers at this event as well, there will be plenty of no men too, not to mention the invitation extended to the everyman in US cricket to have his voice heard.At the heart of the town hall’s discussion points will be the topics circulated in a survey sent out by the ICC ahead of this meeting. Among those topics are the performance of the national team, with one early section of the survey alluding to this by asking respondents to rank in order of importance seven items of what makes a successful team: coaching, preparation, selection, professional players, attitude of players, team harmony and good administration. Another later question asks, “What comes first: Good cricket teams or good cricket administration?”The recent performance of the national team in Ireland at the World Twenty20 Qualifier provides plenty of fodder for debate. When players were contacted by ESPNcricinfo over the course of the month following their return from Ireland, unanimous condemnation was given to the lack of preparation provided to them by the board especially in comparison to the preparation provided by the home boards of their opponents.But separate administrative issues also provide further stumbling blocks. One of the three players head coach Charlie Javed said he had never seen before was Alex Amsterdam, who arrived in Ireland a week after the rest of his teammates and less than 24 hours before the first match due to visa issues.Just nine months earlier, one of USA’s best players in Sushil Nadkarni missed their opening match against Bermuda at World Cricket League Division Three in Malaysia after also going through visa problems similar to Amsterdam’s. Filing paperwork should be the last of a national team player’s worries and is a microcosm of the ineptitude of the administration to ensure the most rudimentary of tasks are sorted on time.Two other major areas up for discussion in the survey and at the town hall are youth and women’s cricket development. Outside of the booming success of the New York PSAL high school league, which has blossomed from 14 teams in 2008 to 30 by 2015, there are few initiatives that demonstrate tangible progress in growing or spreading the game.The US Youth Cricket Association has distributed more than 2000 cricket sets to schools around the country to provide a spark and build interest. Yet outside of USYCA president Jamie Harrison’s home territory of Maryland, there are few examples of school systems that have received free equipment taking the next step to actually form sustainable leagues or competitions similar to the NY PSAL.Women’s cricket is locked in a seemingly perpetual state of limbo. If you ask USACA, they’ll say the number of women’s cricketers has more than doubled since they started their women’s program in 2009 and a 100% increase is a great success. If you ask the ICC, they take the raw data outlook and see that the number of women’s players has grown from about 60 in 2009 to around 120 by 2015, hardly a sign of female cricket participation sweeping the 320 million people in the USA by storm.Whether it’s the men’s national team, youth cricket development or women’s development, all of these suffer from lack of proper support structures and sustainable initiatives.Going back to 2011, USA’s national teams have been promised a half-dozen preparation tours to Jamaica ahead of ICC tournaments and none of those preparation tours have ever eventuated. A pilot project called “Let’s Play Cricket USA” was launched in New York and Florida and had good participation in easy-to-digest 10-over matches for junior players before the program fizzled out.Local women’s players blame the ICC for shuttering the regional women’s championship that provided a spot in the Women’s World Cup Qualifiers. However, the commitment is barely existent from any of the regional home boards, with USACA itself having failed to organize any women’s tournaments since 2011.The Apple Pickers Foundation donated $100,000 earmarked exclusively for the USA women’s team in 2011, but after a messy battle between the women’s squad and USACA resulted in a B squad being sent to that year’s qualifier in Bangladesh, six-figure investments in women’s cricket are no more and local support has dissipated.The support that USA’s players at all levels – men’s, women’s, youth, local, regional, national – desperately needed from their own administration but often failed to receive now appears to be coming from the ICC. The first inkling of that is next month’s ICC Americas combine in Indianapolis. Just as the town hall is an open meeting, just about anyone eligible was encouraged to apply for a chance to tryout in Indianapolis and over 100 players were invited to do so across two weekends.On paper, the ICC Americas combine is for all players in the region, but no one has a greater opportunity to showcase their skills and demonstrate their worth more than the USA players attending. USA’s selection issues are notorious and with the ICC now in control of this process, it may not be a shock to see some lesser knowns or national team discards who did not go to Ireland suddenly vault into a best squad of a combined group of 15 not just from USA but from the entire region.Before that though is this weekend’s town hall meeting in Chicago where designing plans for a way forward is part of the agenda. In the past, ad hoc plans like the Jamaican ghost tours have been made but the lack of follow through on those plans continues to haunt USA. National team players like Akeem Dodson and coaches like Javed have had their say on what some other issues are. Now, an open forum has been established to help fix them. The onus is on local, national and international administrators to not only act on the longstanding issues but lay out a meaningful and structured path, one that will be seriously adhered to, for the future.