ICC considering removal of US federation in upcoming meeting

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is considering to remove U.S. federation at an upcoming meeting after they have failed a two-year process to unify the running of the game in the region. The USACA is a 2nd tier Associate member of the ICC but since 2015 it has been undergoing suspension, their 3rd in 12 years.

USA finished 6th in the 2001 ICC Trophy, their best performance till date. They won the ICC 6 Nations Challenge by tipping Scotland, Netherlands, UAE and Namibia on a better run rate. Their impressive performance helped them qualify for the ICC Champions Trophy in 2004 and got an opportunity to play against New Zealand and Australia. They were outclassed completely as expected.

“The board … does not believe USACA genuinely exercises authority over the sport in the USA and that it instead, for a variety of reasons, presides over a severely fractured community with only a small number of cricket leagues subscribing to its membership and the vast majority not choosing to join the federation, the ICC said in a statement.

“The sport has been fractured in the United States for some considerable time and the board had previously determined that this was unacceptable and needed to be remedied,” the statement further added. The ICC has tried every possible measure to popularise the game in America and also established an advisory group to work with them. They have not engaged themselves in the process and have failed to provide the ICC approved constitution to its membership.

“Our focus throughout this two-year process has been on the unification of the USA cricket community behind USACA to grow and develop the sport, but it has become clear that this is just not possible,” ICC chief executive David Richardson said in the statement. He further added that the only option left now was expulsion. Richardson also conceded that USACA will continue to remain a member of ICC till June but will remain under suspension.