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ICC lays down ground rules for Usaca’s return

United States under-19 batsman Yadunandan Polisetty hits the ball through the off side during his side's ICC Americas under-19 World Cup Qualifiers match against Bermuda earlier this week. (Photograph by Blaire Simmons)

The ICC has laid down the conditions that the United States of America Cricket Association must meet if it wants its suspension lifted.

In a letter sent to Gladstone Dainty, the Usaca president, on July 5 the ICC makes no bones about its determination to fix matters.

“To get that suspension lifted Usaca will have to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the ICC Board that the matters raised within the [Review Group] Report have been satisfactorily clarified, addressed and/or remedied in full,” Narayanaswami Srinivasan, the ICC chairman, writes.

Usaca has until October to show that it is serious about change, and must report its progress at the ICC’s Board meeting that month, where the task force the governing body set-up to help Usaca will also be asked to comment.

The conditions are not easy ones to meet, however, and include Usaca laying bare its accounts, legal difficulties, financial relationships, providing the professional resumes of all Usaca officials, and giving full co-operation to the task force when and as requested,

The ICC’s demands, which are listed in a six page appendix, do not stop there, and Usaca must also outline any instances of undue influence any member may have felt subjected to during the making of board decisions, and the “details of the votes cast by each full voting member of Usaca during the 2015 national election”.

Telling, there is also a paragraph in which Usaca are told they must issue a media release declaring that “Usaca will support the task force in its work developing a strategy for improving the governance, cricketing structures and finance of cricket in the USA, in parallel with Usaca’s efforts to carrying out the appropriate remedial action necessary for its suspension to be lifted.”

That is significant because Usaca officials are said to have formed an ‘appeals committee’ with board members Vincent Adams, Mir Ali and Shakeel Yusuf tasked with challenging the suspension using the ICC’s own arbitration process.

Usaca had its membership suspended by the game’s governing body last month because of the ICC’s “significant concerns about the governance, finance, reputation and cricketing activities of Usaca.”

In the letter the ICC says that its intention is to present Usaca with “an opportunity to demonstrate that it is fit and able” to support the development of the game in the United States.

The most immediate deadline Usaca faces is October 1, by which time it must have an ICC-approved constitution in place, which must be then ratified by Usaca members by February 1, 2016.

A new board must also be elected by June of next year, which means that Dainty’s position is once again under threat. That election has to take place under the terms of the new constitution, and will be run under the supervision of the ICC’s legal department.

One of the main areas highlighted in the Review Group Report was the fact that Usaca represented less than 30 per cent of the cricket playing leagues in the US, with a disparate group of organisations, including the American Cricket Federation, representing the rest.

As such, Usaca has also been asked to list all the cricket activity that has taken place in the past 24 months at senior and youth level under its jurisdiction.

In terms of its financial commitments, the ICC has told Usaca that it must: provide a five-year business plan that shows how it can repay the $2.6m loan to Neil Maxwell and Rajiv Prodar; pay the $. 12m it owes elsewhere; and provide all bank statements from January 1, 2013 to the present day.

Usaca must also terminate any third-party agreements in regard to the right to sanction domestic or international matches within the US, and update the ICC on its negotiations with Arena Sports over a franchise based Twenty20 league in the US.