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By Peter Della Penna

Atul Ahuja, the 44-year-old former CEO of Cricket Canada, has thrown his hat into the ring of candidates to become the next president of the USA Cricket Association. Ahuja first broke the news earlier this month in a series of emails to cricket stakeholders and says he is different from other candidates because he has walked the walk where others in US cricket have only talked the talk.

“I’ve done a lot of things that a lot of people have hoped to do here,” said Ahuja in a phone interview. “I’ve seen the life cycle of how it can be done, what are the opportunities, what are the trials and tribulations, what it takes. That’s one. Secondly, I believe that excellence is a human trait that many people strive for and few achieve. The team I’ve put together is one that has achieved a lot of excellence.”

Ahuja has put together a slate of candidates for other positions on the executive board of USACA as well. So far he has revealed that former West Indies Test batsman Alvin Kallicharran will be running alongside Ahuja to be first vice president, former Bangladesh allrounder Yousuf Rezaur Rahman will run for secretary and US cricket historian David Sentance will run for treasurer. Ahuja says he decided to run because he feels he can be a difference maker in US cricket.

“Most people, if you look back at history, that try to make a difference, they try to make a difference because they believe that they can and they believe there’s a need to make a difference,” said Ahuja. “The combination of can and recognizing there’s a need, that creates a desire to make a difference. I believe that there’s a need to make a difference, there’s a need to bring change. I believe that there’s a lot of talent. I believe it’s a huge market. The United States epitomizes sports management globally. We have the best of sports psychologists, sports medicine, facilities, you name it. If we’re able to leverage all that’s there, we can create a world class cricket system.”

When asked what it was like dealing with USACA as Cricket Canada’s CEO, Ahuja says his interactions were limited.

Image (right) - Atul Ahuja

“US Cricket was in a different place,” said Ahuja. “It still did not have One-Day International status so that kind of did not allow Canada to play One-Day cricket with the United States and the best you could potentially do was play friendly cricket. Being in Canada at the time, my focus was that if we have One-Day status, then we should play with other countries that have One -Day status and preferably countries that are at a higher level so that our team constantly was challenged and it helped develop the players for the upcoming, at that point, World Cup Qualifier.”

Ahuja says the accomplishment he was most proud of in his time as Cricket Canada’s CEO was getting four Full Member nations to play on Canadian soil.

“For the first time ever we had four Full Member countries come to play Canada on Canadian soil. We had the West Indies come and play us, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. To be able to get four Full Member boards to take an Associate nation seriously I think was the biggest accomplishment.” He also listed Cricket Canada’s sponsorship with Scotiabank as another highlight of his tenure.

In order for the USA to get to the same level as Canada in Division One of the Associate nations and the ODI status that comes with it, Ahuja says that high performance systems need to be put in place and part of that is creating a pathway to allow for such a system to succeed.

“We need to take cricket out into the mainstream,” said Ahuja. “We need to create cricket moms, not just soccer moms. So how do we do that? How do we have cricket outreach programs? So I’m putting in place a cricket outreach program. A schools program and a cricket outreach program are extremely important to make sure that we are constantly feeding children into the system and that helps in various ways. The more kids we have playing cricket, the more people that cricket touches, the better the chance is for us to go out and get a sponsorship for these programs. Sponsorships are very numbers based. So if a corporate sponsor comes in and they believe that there’s 100,000 kids that play cricket or have interest in cricket, you’ll find that the sponsorship dollars are pretty much in line with the numbers that play the game.”

When asked how he planned on getting league presidents to commit to grassroots development when little interest has been shown toward doing so by league administrators in recent history, Ahuja responded, “I have faith in the fact that what has been demonstrated globally, most people tend to adapt to it.”

“If you follow any professional high performance pathway that’s worked and demonstrated globally, any sport that’s grown in a country that does not traditionally play it, let’s look at skiing in Australia. That’s a sport that’s really not on the national scene in Australia, but it’s a sport that has actually grown. They’ve got some world class skiers in Australia, Olympic level skiers in Australia. Let’s take soccer in the United States. In any high performance pathway, building from the ground up is essential. That’s proven and that’s the way to do it and that’s what we’re going to do.”

In terms of revamping the USACA governance structure, Ahuja says he would advocate a one term limit for the role of USACA president.

“It’s very important that anybody in a leadership position goes in there to leave a legacy and it shouldn’t be a case of they don’t leave at all which is what we see a lot of. That shouldn’t happen. A refresh every few years is very good for the system. It makes it more inclusive. You’ll find there’s a lot more stakeholders in the system that will feel motivated to come in and contribute and participate,” said Ahuja. “A lot of people ask me, ‘But the US President serves two terms.’ I say the day our cricket system is as mature as the United States government, we can relook at that but at the moment the president should serve one term and he or she should be focused on leaving a legacy in that one term. The board members could potentially serve three terms, two or three terms, that’s the executive committee and that’s fine because you need some continuity. We need to make sure the organization is bigger than the individual.”

Asked for his thoughts on the delays in the USACA elections, Ahuja said that it has damaged USACA’s credibility, something that he hopes to restore if he gets a chance to serve as president.

“I think we need to bring integrity back into the system,” said Ahuja. “For any individual to have credibility, to be believed, you need to build trust. You need to build integrity and it’s very important to build trust. How do you build trust? You build trust when you do what you say you’ll do. My way of building trust is that if this election was supposed to happen at a particular point in time, it should have. Now if the goalpost has been moved, then there better be a good reason but yet again it’s a question of trust and what happens is that people will only put up with a lack of trust until a point in time.”

Ahuja is originally from Pune, India and now lives in Atlanta where he is the president and CEO of an IT firm. He first came to the USA in 1999 when he moved to Los Angeles. While there, he was a member of British & Dominion Cricket Club in the SCCA until 2002 when he moved to Toronto. Ahuja was hired as Cricket Canada’s CEO in November of 2007 but was fired without cause in January 2009. He says he does not believe the way his time ended with Cricket Canada will have any negative effect on his run for USACA President, saying that it is up to the voters to decide who is best.

“I have been an ardent guardian of the game and a catalyst for its growth,” said Ahuja, “and I’ve demonstrated it.”