West Indies Board To Help Develop USA Cricket

Apparently the West Indies Cricket Board has taken upon itself to help develop Cricket in the USA. Well one hopes that this helps cricket in the land of Baseball, but the reality is that this is just another step for Gladstone Dainty the leech-like head of USA Cricket Association to hold on to power like he has for decades.

A weak West Indies Cricket Board, which is having a hard time reviving the game to its glory days in the West Indies itself is now going to help the USA develop the game there?  This is beyond the blind leading the blind.   This is simply another in a long list of missteps by the WICB who seem to have a penchant for getting into bed with anyone with a few dollars in hand.  Anyone remember the Allen Stanford disaster?

Here the desperate USACA under the "leadership" of Dainty, is on the verge of bankruptcy, and is floundering around to stave off the ICC from suspending it due its INCREDIBLE mismangement and total incompetence.  The rival American Cricket Federation has already garnered the support of nearly half the hard ball leagues in the USA and if this association with WICB doesn't work then it could be curtains for USACA and especially for Dainty.

It is about time that cricket in the USA be rescued from the clutches of Dainty who has run it so incompetently that it is over $3 million in debt, and has been suspended by the ICC twice in the past, both times under Dainty's management.  It will not be surprising to learn that prior to the WICB overture, Dainty had tried to sucker in the NZ Cricket Board with a similar scheme, but that went nowhere fast.

The bigger issue is that cricket in the USA has changed a lot since Dainty took the helm and has clung to power by hook or crook.  Back when he came in, cricket, especially hard ball cricket was an East Coast phenomenon and heavily dependent on ex-patriates from the West Indies for players, administrators, and even public support.  Since that time immigrants from the Indian subcontinent have become the biggest group of players, and fans.  Also the center of the Cricket world has shifted to the Indian subcontinent.  It is time that the ICC recognize that the ONLY way to promote cricket as a big time sport in the USA is to have the BCCI in charge of developing it.

Why should the BCCI do it?  Because it is in their best interest too.  Currently Bollywood movies make a third to half their money in USA and UK, and through the IPL the BCCI is already very, very rich, the market for top level cricket in USA, especially if it included homegrown talent could easily double that.  BCCI has the knowledge and via the Indian diaspora the ready made market to do this.  

As for native talent, it is there at the grass roots and more can be developed.  For example in Cupertino in the suburbs of Silicon Valley, a pioneer by the name of Hemant Buch has started a junior cricket league that is taking the sons and even daughters of Indian immigrants and others and introducing them in a very structured and well planned way to the game that their parents are passionate about.  The league has professional coaches, proper equipment and even sends junior teams around the world to hone their skills.  This is the sort of initiative that USACA should be spearheading.  Unfortunately that is not the case.

As the recent Disney movie called the "Million Dollar Arm" shows, the USA and Major League Baseball is well aware of the potential of the Indian market to spread its game.  It is about time a serious effort was made by the ICC to return the favor, and that means roping in the BCCI instead of the WICB as the board to help cricket in the USA.  If it also means that Dainty is dismissed it would be an added plus.