ICC expels USA Cricket Association

What’s the story?

Whilst awarding Test status to Afghanistan and Ireland, the International Cricket Council also expelled the USA Cricket Association from its ICC membership yesterday (June 22). After a unanimous vote at its meeting in London yesterday, the international cricketing body decided on ousting USACA.

"Don't forget they've already taken the matter to the ICC Dispute Resolution Committee on an expedited basis attempting to stop the board and full council from considering the expulsion of USACA at these meetings. The arbitrator found in favour of the ICC and found the ICC had acted rationally and was quite entitled to take the decision to expel USACA," said Dave Richardson, the CEO of the council.

In case you didn’t know...

The relationship between the two governing bodies has always been strained, which has led to ICC suspending USACA three times since 2005. The board had consistently been proposing constitutional changes to USACA, but most of the reforms were never brought about by the association, even after accepting most of them.

The details

The USA last played in the 2016 ICC World Cricket League Division Four

Furthermore, Richardson added that the USACA might go on to take legal action against its expulsion, but will not be able to overturn the decision in court. The national cricketing body of the United States could not cede to ICC’s demands of unifying their cricketing community, while also failing to bring substantial changes to its infrastructure.

The final act that made ICC take the plunge was USA Cricket Association’s refusal to ratify according to the ICC constitution. While the board managed to wiggle out of the two previous suspensions, the third suspension, that it received in 2015, ended with its exclusion.

What next?

Now that the USACA is out of the picture, ICC will invest in the four advisory groups that it had established last year. They will be entrusted with the responsibility of designing a well-structured framework for the new governing body of the country.

It will be a long-drawn process and will require at least a couple of years to be implemented, which means that the chances of USA qualifying for the ICC World Cup 2019 look bleaker than ever now.

Author’s take

While ICC is right in its place in expelling any member that does not abide by its guidelines, USA’s expulsion is sad with respect to expanding the reach of cricket throughout the world.