USA youth coach Owen Graham dies

Owen Graham, one of northern California cricket's most beloved figures, passed away on Saturday at the age of 48. Known to most people as "OG", he was a hugely influential youth coach in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Over the last decade, he has helped develop many of USA's elite junior players from the North West Region, including Saami Siddiqui and Saqib Saleem, who went on to play for the senior team, as well as Shiva Vashishat, who led USA to the ICC Under-19 World Cup in 2010.

"Today I lost a mentor, coach, friend, man who has made me the cricketer I am today, man who has impacted my life in so many ways, man who gave me my nickname, man who has taught me the art of captaincy, man who has taught me to have discipline in all aspects of life....I was blessed to have you in my life," Vashishat posted in a message on social media late Saturday night.

Graham had endured a three-year battle with cancer after he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2012. He underwent chemotherapy in early 2013 when he was initially cleared. However, the cancer resurfaced and he left California for his native Jamaica at the end of 2014.

Graham had moved to the United States in his early 20s and spent nearly half his life playing and coaching youth cricket in the Northern California Cricket Association (NCCA), one of America's oldest leagues founded in 1892. Described by former NCCA president Ganesh Sanap as "NCCA's guiding light", Graham started the NCCA Junior program in 2002 and was also the founding coach of both the California Cricket Academy and East Bay Youth Cricket Association.

A prolific batsman for Caribbean Cricket Club in the NCCA, Graham also had the unique distinction of being one of the key batsmen for the San Francisco Freedom in Pro Cricket, the now defunct US professional T20 league started in 2004. Freedom were champions in Pro Cricket's lone season, defeating a New Jersey Fire squad featuring former India allrounder Robin Singh and West Indies batsman Ricardo Powell in the final.

An eight-team charity Twenty20 tournament named after Graham, now in its second year, was held this weekend in the San Francisco Bay Area to help pay for his medical costs. The event raised more than $20,000 last year and a separate crowdsourcing web page had raised more than $6,000. Sanap said that although players are in mourning, the tournament will continue with the final day's matches being webcast with a live video stream. Graham's daughter Adria will also be in attendance at the final to present the trophy to the winning team.

"The cricket must go on," Sanap told ESPNcricinfo. "OG wouldn't have wanted it any other way."