USA Cricket granted three-month breather by ICC amid governance crisis
The decision was taken at the ICC’s annual board meeting held in Singapore on Saturday, July 19, where USAC’s progress, or lack thereof, was reviewed.
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The embattled USA Cricket (USAC) has been granted a three-month reprieve by the International Cricket Council (ICC), amid ongoing governance issues and uncertainty surrounding its role in team selection for the 2028 Olympics, set to be hosted by Los Angeles.
The decision was taken at the ICC’s annual board meeting held in Singapore on Saturday, July 19, where USAC’s progress, or lack thereof, was reviewed. The American cricket board has been under scrutiny for nearly a year after being put on notice during the 2024 ICC Annual Conference, with the directive to rectify its internal administrative and governance lapses. Despite the intervention of a Normalisation Committee, which visited the U.S. last month, little progress appears to have been made.
The situation has become particularly sensitive as USAC’s standing with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), the country’s apex Olympic authority, has also deteriorated. However, the ICC stopped short of suspending USAC, seemingly influenced by the significance of the United States hosting the LA28 Olympic Games, where cricket is set to make its return after almost 100 years.
Ironically, despite its internal turmoil, USA’s men's and women's teams are expected to receive automatic qualification for the Olympics as the host nation. Yet, the bigger dilemma now is who will select those teams, with USAC’s authority under question and ICC officials weighing the possibility of other interim mechanisms if governance issues are not resolved.
In response, the ICC has opted to implement a hybrid qualification model for the LA28 Games. Under this system, some teams will qualify based on ICC T20 rankings, while others will need to compete in Olympic qualifiers. India, currently ranked No. 1 in the ICC Men’s T20I rankings, are expected to earn automatic qualification regardless of the ranking cut-off date.
Meanwhile, the ICC Board has also constituted a working group tasked with evaluating and recommending structural changes across all three formats of the game. These recommendations are expected to be announced on Monday, July 21, the final day of the Singapore conclave.
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