The last of the independents shuts down

USCricket.com, considered the premier independent cricket website in the USA for nearly a decade, abruptly went off line on October 15, 2005. It reappeared a few days later, but its bulletin boards - long considered the only place on the internet where US cricket issues were openly discussed - were no longer operational, and its home page remained frozen with the same news it has carried for the past few months.

No explanation was offered on its home page for the site's sudden demise. Calls and e-mails to the principals went unanswered.

This leaves US cricket with no national website for independent reporting and open discussion. The sites of the factions in the USA Cricket Association have been in suspended animation for the past six months because of their legal disputes; Major League Cricket (MLC)'s website focuses on its own programs and operations. In any case, none of these sites have open forums where views and arguments can be freely expressed and exchanged.

USCricket.com's open forums owed their reputation to a mistake on the part of the USACA four years ago. The USACA had inherited a flourishing open forum from the US Cricket Federation (USCF), which had dissolved itself under an agreement brokered by Sir Julian Hunt on behalf of the ICC which gave its member clubs official recognition in an expanded USACA. However, the USACA's management shut down the bulletin board because many of the posts were criticisms of its executives and board.

USCricket.com's forums, which had functioned in relative obscurity, were deluged with posts from persons who no longer had a voice in the USACA, and it responded by giving anybody and everybody who had something to say about US cricket unrestricted access to all its forums. In a few weeks, twice as many posts were appearing on USCricket.com's forums than had ever appeared on the old USACA forum, and USCricket.com's reputation as the premier marketplace of ideas in US cricket had been firmly established.

This reputation was acquired at considerable cost, and a great deal of controversy. USACA supporters were unhappy at continuing criticism and so they resorted to a variety of tactics, which grew over time in sophistication and complexity. Under cover of the anonymity provided by USCricket.com's rules, they proceeded to fill the forums with frivolous and irrelevant posts, character assassinations, unsupported accusations, and opinions that could be charitably described as illogical. Forum aficionados countered the lies and illogicalities with vim and vigour, but all this used up valuable space and turned off many serious US cricketers from the rubbish.

Whether this is what led to the demise of the website is an open question. Some pointed to the moribund state of reporting on the site, which had posted no news stories since the Under-19 team's triumphs in Canada. Others pointed to the absence of any sponsorship, which could put any independent website in a financial bind. It was suggested that the site had been in de facto bankruptcy for some time, and had continued the forums until it could no longer afford to do so. The truth lies with the site's owners -- and, so far, they are not talking.

The loss of the USCricket.com must be considered a grave loss to US cricket. Will some other web site emerge from the shadows, as USCricket.com once did, to take on where it left off? No known candidates exist at this time. One can only watch and wait.