The VelloCricket Journal

On behalf of the staff at ICC Americas, we hope everyone is enjoying a great start to the new year. We appreciate the work each of you do to help grow and support the game of cricket in the United States.

In response to many questions we receive, I wanted to get out a quick note to both update everyone on USACA and to also communicate upcoming programs that our office will continue to lead and oversee while USACA remains suspended.

With respect to USACA, over the last few months, our staff along with staff from ICC headquarters and the Sustainable Foundation Advisory Group (SFAG) have worked in good faith with USACA to continue to try to build a Constitution that will both unify the community and be a foundation for the continued growth of cricket in the U.S. This included a face to face meeting in Dallas on December 12 with leadership from USACA, members of the SFAG and staff from the ICC including CEO David Richardson and COO Iain Higgins.  We took some significant steps forward at that meeting and have continued to move forward in hours of subsequent calls and emails.  While we haven’t always agreed, I think we’ve all worked together in the best interest of the cricket community.

The ICC Board heard an update on the work to date on February 4 and sent a clear message that the revised Constitution should be finalized and provided to USACA as soon as possible so they can vote on it by no later than April 1 so the ICC Board can again consider USACA’s suspended status at their April Board meeting.

As mentioned above, given USACA’s suspended status, the ICC Americas office will continue to lead and oversee the selection and preparation for Team USA Senior Men, U18’s and Women’s squads who all participate in important global events this year.  Information on the activities planned in support of those teams is below.  We believe these plans, coupled with strong competition within local leagues and support from all US cricket stakeholders should allow Team USA’s men, youth and women the best chance at success in 2017.

Senior Men:

U18 Men:

Senior Women:

Further to these National programs, it is our hope that “zonal” high performance and talent ID initiatives will be rolled out later in the year to support the on-going development of cricketers within key geographical centers across the country.

ICCA is also partnering with Cricket Australia, the US Olympic Committee, other National Governing Bodies and US cricket stakeholders to create a specific USA Coach Education system. This is a major piece of work that will be rolled out in phases. The hope is that draft “Intro to Cricket (level 0)” and “Level 1” content will be complete in time for a Level 1 Course in Atlanta in May. Following this initial course, facilitators from around the country will be trained in order to roll out Level 1 Coaching Courses in Q3 or Q4 this year.

We hope the information above is helpful but please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions. Tom Evans (tom.evans@iccamericas.com) is the best point of contact for any questions related to men’s, women’s, U18 or coach education programs and I am the best point of contact for anything governance related (eric.parthen@iccamericas.com).

Thanks again for all you do to support cricket in the United States!