Ahmed fears another ICC suspension for USA

Former USACA vice president Nabeel Ahmed is afraid that USA may be heading down the path to another suspension from the ICC. In an interview with ESPNcricinfo, Ahmed disputed board member Shelton Glasgow's claims that USACA was not in violation of its constitution by establishing this year's election for October 15, thereby extending the current executive's term past the three years designated in the constitution.

"My interpretation of that is there are two different things," Ahmed said. "What I see is that there is term of three years. That is something that we are omitting. We are not even talking about the term for three years. The board is elected for three years which expired in March. When we are saying November; November means let's say 2010 November, so in one or two months a new board should come and take over. There is a time process which is needed for the new board to take over. These are two different things and we have mixed it up."

The last USACA election took place on March 29, 2008. Glasgow had told ESPNcricinfo at the end of March that the elections this year would be held in October instead of March to allow regional elections to take place and give enough time for member leagues to submit their annual dues.

"The USACA board met and agreed to extend the payment of dues for 2010 to May 31, to give the delinquent leagues a chance to become compliant," Glasgow said. "So May 31 is when this should occur. They have to pay their 2010 and their 2011 dues."

Ahmed doesn't buy into Glasgow's reasoning and believes this is just a stalling tactic for the board to stay in power.

"This is all crap. This is no excuse," Ahmed said. "Everybody knew what time USACA elections were supposed to take place. Why did they wait so long? Just because member leagues have not paid, just because of that - are we joking? Is this a game we are playing?"

"The bottom line is we should not have come to this point. This is one of the major reasons why I resigned; that non-governance and leadership failed and this is proof of those things."

Ahmed is surprised that the ICC has not suspended USACA already, but says that it is not out of the realm of possibility.

"They could have done that," Ahmed said. "Why not? They have every reason to do that because we went through this twice before and this is one of the reasons, non-governance, because of which we got suspended. Why will we think it will not happen again? Because we have New Zealand Cricket as a commercial partner? No, that is no reason to sit and think about these kind of things. Or do we think there aren't capable people out there in the US to run this board? This has become a joke."

Last December, Ahmed told ESPNcricinfo that he would seek to become the next USACA president when elections take place. As far as Ahmed is concerned, Gladstone Dainty's term as board president has expired and there should be an interim board appointed.

"The term is for three years. If we cannot have an election for some reason, these directors are supposed to go home. There has to be an interim committee," said Ahmed. "I think term has expired in three years and this board is not official anymore. Nobody is."