USA's preparatory tour to Jamaica cancelled

For the second ICC event in a row, a planned pre-tournament trip for the USA senior team has been called off.

In February, the USA Cricket Association had announced that a 14-man squad would be picked and to travel to Jamaica for a four-day preparation camp from April 23 following the National Championship in Florida. The camp would have been the first chance for USA's new squad to play together ahead of the ICC Americas Division One T20 tournament in Indianapolis from May 3. However, several team sources confirmed on Thursday night that the players were still in the USA and though USACA administrators had told them that "they were working on something" for the team, nothing had been organised.

Team sources also confirmed that USACA still had not finalised travel arrangements for them to get to Indianapolis next week.

The current situation is virtually a carbon copy of USACA's build-up to ICC WCL Division Three in Malaysia last October. USACA had planned for a five-day camp in Jamaica prior to leaving for the tournament, but it was scrapped due to USACA's poor financial situation.

Plane tickets to get the players to New York for departure to Malaysia were purchased less than 48 hours before the squad left JFK airport and were only financed after USACA received funds from the ICC. The team wound up finishing fifth and was relegated to Division Four.

Despite debts of $4.1 million on their 2013 tax filings, USACA had attempted to demonstrate that their finances were set to improve by announcing a new sponsorship agreement on March 14 with Overseas League Club (OLC), which according to its web site is a leisure facility located in Bangalore. Robin Singh, who has coached USA's national teams on a contract basis since 2011, is listed as an OLC board member.

A USACA press release on March 14 stated that the four-year sponsorship with OLC "goes a significant way to deploy large capital sums for the ongoing running of the competitive teams as well as supporting national recognised youth development programs through 2019." USACA president Gladstone Dainty was also quoted as saying that the deal was a "vital way to stabilise funding issues that leagues and organizations in the US have to deal with on a day to day basis."

USA will be the only one of four sides to go into the four-team double round-robin tournament without playing any warm-up matches. Canada will be touring Houston, Texas next week for three practice games against an invitational XI including several former West Indies and USA players. Bermuda toured Jamaica for three matches from April 13-16 while Suriname hosted an MCC touring side in March.

ESPNcricinfo attempted to contact multiple USACA administrators regarding the state of the planned preparation for the ICC Americas T20 tournament but emails and phone calls were not returned.