A younger and better US team?

Steve Massiah: named as the new national captain © ICC

The list of probables issued by the USACA for the Intercontinental Cup in Canada is a remarkable one -- not only for who has been selected, but who has been dropped.

It is not only the captain, Richard Staple, and the veteran Test cricketer Clayton Lambert, who have been axed by the USACA selectors. There are only seven players left from the squad that played in the ICC Trophy. All the senior, over-35 players are gone, and Steve Massiah, one of the youngest players in the ICC Trophy team and considered the best batsman to have represented the USA, has been named the new skipper.

Renaldo Francis and Duane Nathaniel starred in the Under-19 national tournament in Los Angeles in 2003, are called up for the first time. Amer Afzaluddin, who had captained at the Under-19 Americas tournament three years ago, and was later selected as the only US player to participate in a prestigious Caribbean cricket academy program, is back in the side, and young Usman Shuja, reputedly one of the fastest bowlers in the USA who has been honing his skills in Australia under the tutelage of Dennis Lillee, also finds a place on the team.

At the very least, the list of probables shows that there are indeed younger players in the USA who fullfil ICC's criteria and can be selected to play for the USA. While precise calculations are not yet available, the average age of the squad must have dropped at least ten years. What is not clear is whether this came about through necessity, or whether this was a proactive decision on the part of the USACA selectors. There have been rumors that Staple and the other seniors were planning to quit after the debacle at the ICC Trophy, so the selectors would have had to turn to the younger players to fill the gaps. Or this might have been a pre-emptive move by the selectors who did not want to deal with the bad publicity generated by mass defections. Whatever the case, this is a younger team with a lot of interesting but unproven talent, which is probably a good move.

Whether this is the best team that could be selected is another matter entirely. Critics can again point to the unrepresentative character of the team, with the West (considered a Council of League Presidents) still under-represented on the roster. Indeed the CLP, some members of which are chafing at the way in which they feel they were talked into supporting USACA selections in spite of their misgivings, is thinking of boycotting the Intercontinental Cup selection process and seeing whether ICC is as good as its word in insisting on a true joint selection and agreement on US cricket governance.