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Jeddy hopes Central West Region will turn things around on development front

openingbat — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 12:55:00 GMT

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By Peter Della Penna

Ahmed Jeddy, the Central West Region’s representative on the USACA board of directors, has admitted to failures in the lack of progress for youth and women’s cricket in his region, but says that it is a shared responsibility among many leaders in his region to improve.

“I am the first person who will raise my hand and tell you that basically we are not where we are supposed to be,” said Jeddy, in response to some quotes in a recent DreamCricket article regarding the Texas intercity competition that highlighted problems with youth development. “People have come very hard on my region and they think that it’s just the regional director’s responsibility to spearhead the region. Just like any other organization, just like the game of cricket, it is teamwork. One man cannot win you a game and one man cannot run an organization either. Any organization or any sporting event has to have a team effort.”

The Central West Region was the only region not to send a team to the U-15 National Tournament in Newark, N.J., this past summer. It was also one of four regions not to have a women’s team formed to play in the Women’s National Tournament that took place in Cupertino, Calif.

“Our youth program is going nowhere. Our women’s program is going nowhere. We have been trying our league presidents to nominate their representatives who can work with the women’s coordinator in our region,” said Jeddy. “We have not found enough womens players who are willing to come forward. We are still waiting out of the four leagues, three leagues to even designate their liaisons from their respective leagues who can work with our women’s coordinator to kickstart a program.”

Jeddy feels that part of the problem is at the league level. He says administrators do not show interest in youth or women’s programs and instead focus their time solely on men’s cricket. This makes it harder for him to try to organize things from the various leagues to come together at the regional level.

“For the leagues, their primary goal is to run the league. I have been told that by many league presidents, ‘For us we have to first run our leagues and then after that we’ll worry about USACA and USACA’s programs’ and that is what is putting Central West down is this negligent attitude,” said Jeddy. “If you don’t have people who want to even communicate back to you nine out of 12 months of the year and they only want to do things when there is a senior tournament, then how do you expect that region to take that next step?"

"At the end of the day, if you do not have a support cast, $20,000 plus later and almost two and a half years later, I still find myself about 15 years behind compared to all the other regions who are far ahead of us. That’s how much I have personally probably invested in cricket.”

“I think in my capacity, I’ve always been on the forefront, even out of my personal funding and also with sponsorships, singlehandedly I have driven a lot of programs. When we had the USACA Western Conference in Houston two years ago, I singlehandedly went out and contributed a lot of funds to stage the tournament. So between USACA, HCL (Houston Cricket League) and myself, we were the sole financers of that tournament.”

“Then comes the Under-19 team,” said Jeddy. “Last year, I was singlehandedly responsible to take my Under-19 players to New York and that included their uniforms, that included everything. I did not see no sponsors coming in at that time too. I did not see no big names from Austin or any other place to help us out and at that time the excuse that was given to me was, ‘Oh. Bad economy. We cannot do anything.’ So when the bad economy was there, the bad economy was here as well. So the point I am trying to make is that one man cannot do anything. I can only ask.”

As for what it will take to get an U-15 team and a women’s team together at the regional level, Jeddy again argued that he needs cooperation and vision at the league level and that these things are just as essential as funding if things are going to change.

“Since 2008, I personally have tried everything possible to get the Under-15 team going and I could not find enough players, because there have not been initiatives driven in the region by the youth coordinators, the league presidents. A regional director can only tell you the expectation and give you an idea of how to run the program,” said Jeddy. “Am I proud of my region’s progress? No, absolutely not. Can I make a difference? Yes, I want to make a difference, but I need support. I need people to step up. I need the youth coordinator to step up. I need the women’s coordinator to step up. I need the league presidents to step up to help these other positions to do their job.”

USA Cricket - Texas inter-city competition opens new doors

openingbat — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 12:46:00 GMT

Now, you can get all the USA Cricket updates via Facebook. Also follow us on Twitter via @dreamcricket

By Peter Della Penna

This year’s USACA U-15 National Tournament was noteworthy for the North West Region’s third straight championship performance. It was also noteworthy for the fact that the Central West Region did not participate in the tournament. Perhaps the most alarming thing about this is the fact that Texas has three cities with thriving cricket scenes, yet 14 players could not be found to support a team to send to Newark, N.J., for the event.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Michael Gale, a cricket supporter based in Austin, Texas. “We’ve got some of the biggest cities in America. San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, the I-35 corridor in Austin, I mean you’ve got three of the biggest cities in America. We can’t get an U-15 team together? That’s ridiculous. We have a big Asian population here. We have weather that’s really well suited to cricket. Land is cheap, the government is willing. It just seems bizarre.”

Gale and many others in Texas are hoping to prevent this from happening again. One way for them to achieve this is by encouraging development through the creation of the Intercity Cricket Cup. The 40 over competition was originally organized in 2008 by Satish Patil in Austin and Surya Saladi in Houston as a way to encourage more interaction between the two cities. In particular, it was seen by Patil as a way for players in Austin to better prepare for the Central West regional tournament.

Image: Houston player Ryan Corns accepts a trophy from USACA Treasurer John Thickett. [Courtesy: Brian Walters]

“Most of the Austin players were not even used to playing 40 overs or 50 over league,” said Patil. “Everyone was more interested in playing 20 over or 25 over. When we went and played in Central West, we found that we were short of match practice. So we used this opportunity where we can at least play 40 overs and have our players build the stamina and the temperament to play the longer version rather than just playing 20 over games.”

In 2010, the Intercity Cricket Cup became a three city competition when Dallas got involved. One match is played per month with each city playing four matches over the course of the year, one home and one away game against each of the other two cities, before the top two teams play for the final. As a result, it has given many players a platform to showcase their skills against an increased level of competition compared to the past when chances to prove themselves did not come as frequently.

“It has been a good success,” said Patil. “If you take the Central West competition, there are just 12 or 14 players who can play for Houston. But if you look at the past two or three years, there are almost 70, 80 or even 100 people who have played this particular competition. We’ve had around 12 or 15 games in the past three years and what we have seen is the number of opportunities our players have got is tremendous.”

The number of opportunities for young players is also starting to increase. Although each city has its own selection criteria, Houston is dedicated to including emerging talent.

“The team selection has certain criteria, like you can have four main players that play at the higher level and then you have a bunch of youngsters. You are supposed to select two or three Under-19 kids,” said USA vice-captain Sushil Nadkarni, who lives and plays club cricket in Houston. “There are a lot of young kids that have gotten opportunities at this level. Some of them have come through well. Others have found out where they need to continue developing. At least on our side in Houston, we’ve made it a point to make sure we have Under-19 kids involved.”

Because Nadkarni is an established presence in the national team, he doesn’t want to take up opportunities that could go to younger players in Intercity Cricket Cup matches. As a result, he is trying to act as a mentor to those players and pass on the things he learned growing up as a player in India.

“All over the US, what we miss is people or basically solid coaches that can teach the fundamentals to the upcoming cricketers,” said Nadkarni. “By no means am I a qualified coach, but when I learned my cricket I learned the fundamentals right I believe. My focus is to help guide on the fundamental aspects of batting and fielding and bowling and then also help them on the mental aspect in terms of approaching different situations and what would you do differently. So from a coaching aspect it’s more mentoring on how you approach innings, how would you react to certain situations in a game and I’ve just been imparting whatever I’ve learned over the years.”

Another thing that is missing for younger players besides good coaching is funding. However, Gale has stepped in to change that. In addition to paying for things like balls and colored uniforms for all the teams involved in the Intercity Cricket Cup, Gale has pledged to put up an undisclosed amount of prize money starting in 2010 for a minimum of five years to provide an impetus for proper youth cricket development in Texas.

Image: Houston (left) and Austin (right) players pose at the final of the 2010 Intercity Cricket Cup. [Courtesy: Brian Walters]

“It’s not a huge sum of money,” said Gale. “It’s not six figures or anything but I’ve committed to do this for five to ten years because I think it’s important. The tournament will be funded for the minimum for the next five years.”

The prize money for the Intercity Cricket Cup each year will go to the winning city team to be used by that city team for youth cricket projects. This year’s winner was Austin, which defeated Houston in the final on October 2 by 6 wickets. Gale knows that youth cricket is poorly funded across the country, but is hoping that by doing something within these three cities, it will help inspire more people in his region, and across the country, to do more to help develop youth cricket.

"With so little money invested in cricket, you don't need a lot to make a difference," said Gale. "I think youth cricket is so small. If you were to draw a chart with how many people are playing youth cricket, you could barely show a chart. I think it is so underserved in all the cities in the US. There's some great action on the west coast with Hemant Buch. They're clearly building in New York, but I think all of us as parents or adults are not doing a good enough job of encouraging kids to play. If it takes a bit of seed money to do it with a bit of passion, I think that's great."