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By Peter Della Penna

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Along the news wire this morning were articles announcing that both Canada and the Netherlands were invited and accepted the opportunity to participate in January’s Caribbean T20 tournament to be held in Trinidad and Barbados. Another way to interpret the story is that two Associate members will be participating in the Caribbean T20 tournament but the USA is not one of them, despite belonging to the same ICC Region where the tournament is being conducted.

This will be the third time Canada is participating in the tournament while it’s the first time for the Netherlands. USA was passed over for the July 2010 event In favor of Canada, which took place only a month and a half after USA had beaten Canada to claim the inaugural ICC Americas Division One Twenty20 championship in Bermuda. In the next Caribbean T20 which took place the following January, Canada was once again invited ahead of the USA. Last November, USACA President Gladstone Dainty was asked why Canada was getting these opportunities while the USA was not.

“I speak with the President of the West Indies board very frequently and the CEO of the West Indies board, a great man,” said Dainty. “That thing with Canada and the T20 or whatever, once again we were preparing to go to Italy at the same time so it made the West Indies board easier, made the decision easier to invite Canada rather than the United States. At the time, we were contacted and we didn’t necessarily decline, but they knew that it would present a financial hardship because you gotta remember the players we have, they’ve got jobs.” The excuse for not getting involved in the tournament last January was that the dates conflicted with USA’s involvement in ICC World Cricket League Division Three, a perfectly legitimate excuse. What is the reason USA hasn’t gotten involved this time around?

It’s doubtful that USA actually received an invite for next January’s event. Why would the West Indies want to sully the reputation of their tournament and lower the overall playing standard by inviting a team that was demoted to Division Four of the World Cricket League this year instead of inviting two teams that are in Division One and participated this year in the ICC World Cup? Not only did USA sink from Division Three to Division Four on the WCL ladder, they entered the most recent ICC Americas Division One Twenty20 as the defending champs on home soil but could only muster a second place finish to a second-string Canada side.

Those less than desirable results are a byproduct of the absence of a clearly defined mission from USACA for USA’s teams and more importantly, a pathway toward achieving such a mission. When Canada participated in the first Caribbean T20, the squad they sent was far from a first choice unit, but they utilized the event as an opportunity to give some of their younger players valuable experience against good opposition. The experience players obtain in events like this and the Intercontinental Cup has gone a long way toward providing Canada a solid pool of players they can call on to fill in and perform without a dip in the overall quality of the team. This was clear from their dominance in Fort Lauderdale over the summer.

KNCB (Netherlands Cricket Board) CEO Richard Cox said that, “Undoubtedly this is another significant move in our preparation for the international playing program,” in regard to the Netherlands getting a chance to participate in January’s Caribbean T20. What is USACA doing in preparation for its international program? They will be playing in the same ICC World T20 Qualifier in March that Canada and the Netherlands are in, but they will be doing it without the same level of preparation.

Some people may argue that there is a plan in place for USA, one which consists of having local players improve their skills by participating alongside and against elite level international players in a New Zealand Cricket backed Twenty20 league that is planned to kickoff next summer. Money acquired from TV rights and sponsorships of the league will then help fund grassroots and infrastructure development to make USA national teams better. There is a problem with part of that plan though. USA’s players are currently incapable of competing in such a league without severely embarrassing themselves. Very few companies will be eager to sponsor a sports league where the source of entertainment winds up being unintentional slapstick comedy when the actual aim was to demonstrate athletic brilliance.

At the tournament awards banquet for the ICC Americas Division One Twenty20 in July, Dainty got up in front of the six teams present and reminded everyone that USACA had big plans to start a Twenty20 league with the first match getting underway in the summer of 2012. According to Dainty’s calculations, there would be six teams with about 16 players on each roster. The intention was that half of them would be Test level standard players from overseas and the other half would potentially be Associate players from the Americas region. However, he bluntly stated that he did not feel there were anywhere near 48 players from the region capable of participating in the league without severely bringing down the standard of play and told those present that they needed to step up their games if they wanted to be a professional player with a contract in the league.

So what is USACA doing for its own players to help bridge that gap? What has USACA done since July to help develop players to get them ready to play in this league? What opportunities is USACA creating for its national team to make people confident that they can not only make a serious run in Dubai to qualify for next year’s ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka, but also reverse course in the World Cricket League to get USA going in the right direction back toward Division One?

After winning the ICC Americas U-19 championship in February, USACA sat on their hands for months before throwing the USA U-19 team to the wolves against the West Indies U-19, setting the team up for disaster weeks later at the ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifier in Ireland. Do they have a similar plan in mind to prepare players for participation in a Twenty20 league? Play club cricket once a week on substandard fields against out of shape men in their 40s right before facing up against Daniel Vettori and Ross Taylor? How is a promising talent like Hammad Shahid supposed to do anything but come up short in a potential showdown with Brendon McCullum when he’s spending a good chunk of his time helping out at his family’s car dealership?

These things never get addressed because USACA’s administrative tussles continue to get in the way. Instead of using their time to focus on preparing players for success and arranging opportunities for talent to improve, USACA administrators choose to squabble like a group of kindergartners moaning to their teacher because Jimmy won’t share his set of Legos for everyone else to play with. Fans do not show up at grounds to see administrators. They show up to see the players.

USA’s players and fans do not strive to be embarrassed on the field, but it’s happened a few times in 2011 because of the kamikaze approach of the administration and it’s in danger of happening again with teams at every level, first and foremost with the way the women's team is being treated ahead of the ICC Women's World Cup Qualifier next month. There’s also the possibility that USA won’t even get the chance to do good or bad on the field next year if the ICC decides they’ve had enough of the board room shenanigans and lay down another suspension. Either way, USA will continue to go in the wrong direction until administrators put players first and develop a plan that gives teams a clearly defined vision with an achievable target to aim for. The Netherlands, Canada and so many other Associate countries appear to have that. There’s no reason the USA shouldn’t either.

[Views expressed in this article are those of the author.]