Can USA Cricket ever make World Cup?

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  • Cricket nation: The majority of America's 10-20 million cricket fans are from immigrant communities.

    “If UAE can qualify for the World Cup then there’s no reason why USA shouldn’t. So that’s going to be a focus for us in the next few years.” – Dave Richardson, International Cricket Council CEO.

    The golden goose that is America is never far from the thoughts of the world’s cricket administrators. The only remaining economic and political super-power having an interest in the sport would be massive for the game. And there are cricket fans in America, 10-20 million of them according to some estimates. Cricket websites around the world get a massive proportion of their traffic from the USA. Despite all of this cricket in the USA is years away from getting close to a World Cup, in fact it is probably more a case of decades.

    Speaking in 2014 the then Chief Executive of the USA Cricket Association (USACA), Darren Beazley, summed it up as follows; “The ICC will tell you there are 10million cricket fans within the US. I don’t know how many of those 10 million are US cricket fans. I think what you have is immigrants that come from Pakistan, and when they are asked “do you love cricket” they say yes. Then you say would you buy a US team jersey or a Pakistan team jersey they will go for Pakistan.”

    This is the issue that cricket faces in America. If the sport is to grow beyond the niche following it has amongst immigrant communities it needs to develop an American identity, and despite being in existence since 1965 USACA has singularly failed to do that. Instead cricket remains “an underground sport”, a term that was used to describe the sport by a senior USACA official in 2009. The reasons for cricket’s stagnation is as much to do with USACA as anything else. They have been suspended from the ICC twice in the last decade and they are on the brink of being booted out again.

    Cricket in America has been badly managed and poorly treated and in a letter dated 28th January 2015 the ICC Chairman, N. Srinivasan, outlined those concerns in excruciating detail. He told the President of USACA, Gladstone Dainty, that there were concerns that his organisation fails to comply with the ICC constitution, has failed in its financial and membership obligations and is potentially bringing the game into disrepute.

    Srinivasan goes on to say; “As you are aware, the [ICC] have had concerns over the organisation and development of cricket in the USA for a number years, and the role USACA has played in the apparent lack of progress of the game in the USA. Despite attempts made by the ICC and certain of its Members to assist USACA in addressing these concerns, it appears that no real progress has been made.”

    The issues that face the sport in the America are manifold, but the real problem is the fragmented nature of the domestic structure that USACA have done nothing to resolve. The organisation is made up in a number of leagues that play under their own rules with their own players. There is a history of political struggles to get players from one league into the national side, often meaning that the best players are left on the sidelines.

    All of this has led to the USA team languishing in World Cricket League 4, in essence the fifth division in world cricket. In the most recent tournament that they played they finished below Uganda, Malaysia, Nepal and Singapore, losing to all of them in the progress. To suggest that they are even capable of getting close to World Cup qualification is laughable.

    Over the last few years there has been a challenge to USACA’s stranglehold on the administration of the game. The American Cricket Federation was born out of the frustration of those that felt USACA were failing in their fiduciary duties. Its current CEO, Jamie Harrison, feels that any talk of international success is very unlikely. “Fifty years of abject neglect has left the United States with little chance of reaching lofty heights anytime soon” Harrison said. “The USA has plenty of promising players who learned the game in the country of their birth, but then came here to find no national team program, no professional coaching, and no facilities of any real value.”

    He feels that USACA continuously playing politics with player’s careers and the running of the sport has only exacerbating this situation meaning that there is little hope of developing a structure that is capable of sustaining any sort of professionalism any time soon. The players are all amateurs who hold down full time jobs, train themselves, coach themselves and come together rarely for ICC events that they are ill prepared to compete in.

    There are not even turf pitches for the players to use to compete against each other, with the vast majority of leagues being played on artificial surfaces. While Beazley was in post he secured an understanding with the city of Indianapolis to put on events on grass wickets, once he resigned out of frustration at the internal workings of USACA that relationship collapsed very quickly.

    The game growing in America would be fantastic, but it is so far from a reality that the Richardson’s comments about World Cup qualification are ridiculous. The idea that the USA are more of a priority that the likes of Ireland and Afghanistan who have overcome massive hurdles to put together competitive teams shows the priorities of those that run cricket. The USA is seen as a money maker, even though the reality is very different.

    There are people that follow the game in America, there are none that follow the national team. That kind of support takes a generation to take hold. The sport has already wasted a whole generation thanks to the appalling mismanagement of USACA, hopefully it won’t be another 50 years of failure before the hard yards to grow the game are put in at grassroots level. 

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