Major League Cricket offers hope for the US

With all that is happening today in US cricket, any attempt to get something new started in the US market would have to be considered a foolhardy enterprise.

Yet Major League Cricket Incorporated (MLC), with Bernard Cameron as its CEO and counting Clive Lloyd and Desmond Haynes among its associates, is preparing to do exactly that. It has announced its re-entry into US cricket with a refurbished website, a ten-year development plan and a national Under-15 tournament in Chicago in July 2005, and is receiving a lot of support from US cricketers who are anxious to see something happen.

MLC's original efforts go back four years, when it first presented its plans to the USA Cricket Association's executives and board. It suggested a four-stage strategy to USACA.

One, it wished to work with current cricket leagues in the USA to achieve some consistency of product. Two, it wanted to develop cricket at the Under-13 to Under-19 levels from the ground up, working with schools and state/local authorities, much as soccer did 20 years ago. Third, it wanted to work towards a US national inter-league championship format, starting in two years and developing a full-fledged structure in four years. Finally, it intended to superimpose a professional cricket league which would draw on indigenous recruits from the youth and the inter-league organizations and develop a truly US professional cricket cadre. The entire process was expected to take 10 years, in time for the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies.

MLC received no reply from the USACA, although it did note that elements of their national plan were incorporated into USACA's first regional and national tournaments. MLC's biggest problem was that US cricket organizations wanted MLC to guarantee funds up front, and to take the entire risk of possible failure on its own shoulders, while MLC was looking for partners to share the risks and the responsibilities. MLC realized that it had to be strong enough to function on a stand-alone basis without any help from any one else.

MLC did try to get things going in its own backyard of North East USA, with inter-league tournaments at senior and junior levels. All reports suggest that these events were a success. However, MLC's contract to develop and use a first-class facility at the Floyd Bennett field in New York was voided by a vote from some newly-appointed New York board members, and its efforts to secure alternate financing for Florida-based facilities were similarly scuppered. MLC then went into hibernation, emerging in 2005 with a renewed sense of purpose.

Expecting a better response from league presidents than from the USACA board, Cameron attended the inaugural CLP meeting in Dallas to test the water, and found himself recruited into writing and developing resolutions for CLP to pass. Unfortunately, his volunteer effort began to draw flack from some factions who saw in this an effort by MLC to take over US cricket. Subsequently, Cameron tried to present his road map to USACA's June 4 meeting in New York, but was prevented from doing so on the grounds that MLC was neither a USACA league nor a USACA member organization, and therefore had no place on the agenda.

Faced with this rebuff, MLC has evidently decided to re-enter US cricket on its own. Cameron formally presented his 10-year road map as MLC's own long-term agenda, and announced MLC's national Under-15 Tournament in July 2005 as MLC's inaugural program effort. MLC's newly energized website is busily moving along on its proposed lines, in contrast to other US cricket organizations which are still busily spinning their wheels over legal and procedural matters.

An interesting difference between MLC's long-range vision and those of, say, the USACA or CLP is that it places far more emphasis on local and junior cricket development in its earlier stages, and far less on representative international cricket and participating in ICC-sponsored tournaments. Under the MLC approach, at least five years of intensive development at junior levels are needed for a genuine USA team to compete in international cricket, as opposed to makeshift teams largely based on immigrant players. This attitude is unlikely to generate much enthusiasm from administrators who depend on their mainly immigrant memberships for running their current programs, and who are likely to be unwilling to make the sacrifices that MLC's agenda entails. But judging by the very positive response it has been receiving from US cricketers, MLC could very well succeed in achieving its goals--and proving, after all, that everything is not lost in US cricket.