Legal battle for control of US cricket escalates

The US Council of League Presidents (CLP), facing criticism from within its ranks for caving in to USACA on the selection of the ICC Trophy and the Under-19 teams, has decided to take legal action against the USA Cricket Association (USACA).

It is now questioning the USACA's legal moves in court, and has filed its own lawsuits against Gladstone Dainty, the USACA president, and his executive board. It is seeking to have the USACA elections of 2005 declared null and void, and to invalidate the re-appointment of Dainty and his executive.

In recent weeks, many members of the CLP have been increasingly frustrated by the attitude of the USACA. Having been persuaded to enter into negotiations for the sake of the cricketers, CLP members appear to believe they were talked into giving away most demands in the face of USACA's refusal to make any concessions on system governance or joint team selection.

As a result of the overwhelming support received by CLP at the extraordinary general meeting of member clubs in June, most US cricketers had expected CLP to take decisive action. But its reluctance to do so when faced with legal actions against it, and its perceived reluctance to take on the USACA head-on, caused some to lable the CLP as a "paper tiger" by many former supporters. It is now keen to shed those perceptions.

It should now be clear that USACA and CLP are far apart in their views of the fundamentals, and that this cannot be papered over by agreements signed under duress, as CLP claims was the case with the ICC Trophy and Americas Under-19 team selections.

Given the legal stalemate between USACA and CLP, there can be no official agreement on the USA Intercontinental Cup squad, certainly not by ICC's deadline of August 1. It will then have to be seen if the ICC will enforce its requirement that without an agreement signed by all parties on joint governance and team selection, no USA team will be allowed into one of its tournaments.