Youngsters show Americas how cricket should be played

In perhaps its darkest hour in its recent history, the USA was treated by its youngsters to a dazzling performance on the world cricket stage - and a vision of what could happen in its future.

With its national team having been excommunicated from world cricket by the ICC, The USA U-19 team made mincemeat of its opponents at the Americas U-19 World Cup Qualifying tournament in Toronto. It defeated 2001 and 2003 champions Canada by 35 runs on the first day; and thrashed previous co-champion Bermuda by eight wickets on the second. By the time it had coasted to a seven-wicket victory over winless Argentina, it had secured top place in the tournament and its place in the in the U-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka in 2006.

The amazing thing was that the USA U-19 team was in Ontario at all. It had been rescued from oblivion by a patient ICC, and a last-minute concession by the USA Council of League Presidents (CLP) to its rivals, the USA Cricket Association (USACA). This gesture ensured that at least the team and its coach were cleared at the to participate in Ontario at the eleventh hour, and the rest is history.

The success of the 2005 USA U-19 team was underscored by the failure of previous USA teams to achieve anything of substance in prior Americas U-19 tournaments.

In past years, the USACA had not even bothered to select an U-19 team, instead preferring to nominate three or more players to joint teams with the lesser Associate members. Pressed by ICC to acknowledge the requirements that every ICC member have a junior programme capable of selecting teams for ICC junior tournaments, USACA tried its hand at selecting USA under-19 teams. The results were distinctly less than edifying. The first USA U-19 teams ended up somewhere in the cellars, being soundly defeated by the dominant teams from Canada, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

The problem was that there was no national program or championship to identify promising youngsters in the USA. So the first USA teams were ad hoc collections of nominees selected by word-of-mouth, hearsay or less. This was hardly a way to run a national team. It reinforced the myth that there were no younger citizen-players in the USA to speak of, so the USACA could only select "veterans" who had passed the arduous tests of citizenship in the USA for ICC-sponsored tournaments.

But a grass-roots movement of sorts had been growing for junior cricket, and took the form of proposing, for the first time, a national tournament in 2004 to see what talent could really be identified at the U-19 level. USACA was decidedly cool to the idea, and objected that finding youngsters of sufficient promise to qualify under ICC's residence rules was an exercise in futility. Undeterred, the organizers decided (over USACA objections) to expand their selection criteria to include "near-citizens" who would be likely to qualify in time for the 2007 World Cup. This defiance nearly led to the cancellation of the national U-19 tournament, but the USACA was reminded of its obligations to ICC and let it go ahead.

That first National U-19 Tournament in Los Angeles in October 2004, featuring four zonal teams combining two contiguous USACA regions each, was an unqualified success. But the bickering continued between the USACA and the U-19 organizers. When it was announced that an All-star team would be named to help with future national USA U-19 selections, the USACA selection committee denounced the move as an encroachment on its prerogatives. When an all-Star team was selected anyway, USACA said that the list would play no part in its selection processes. This singular lack of grace on the part of USACA puzzled many who were at the tournament, and foreshadowed many of the problems that would arise in the near future for USACA and US cricket.

The U-19 all-star list did achieve a notable purpose. For the first time, a national roster of junior cricket talent was available to whoever asked for it. This was to prove crucial in the events to follow. When the disputes between the CLP and USACA over the U-19 team selection first arose, the list provided a common ground for negotiations between the CLP and USACA lawyers. At least at the player level, the two groups finally found themselves on essentially common ground, and an amicable settlement seemed possible.

At the very last moment, the USACA president threw a monkey wrench into the proceedings. He refused to accept a joint USACA/CLP management team, and insisted that a player who had not figured in either the CLP's or the USACA's team be included in the final 14, displacing one of CLP's selections. After a few days of haggling, the CLP swallowed its pride and capitulated to Gladstone Dainty's ultimatum "for the sake of the players", and signed an agreement approving a joint team and a coach (but not a manager or other officials). As an aside, Dainty's selectee did not play in any of the matches in the U-19 tournament.

The final team which went to Ontario was a vindication of the strategy that the grass roots U-19 organizers had pursued. Fully 11 of the 14 were U.S. citizens, and only three were "deemed nationals". Expanding the U-19 tournament criteria to include "near-citizens", which had been opposed by the USACA, had proved to be an even greater success than anticipated. And now the USA has a group of U-19 citizen players who have proved they were the best of the Americas, and they can look forward to an uncertain and distant future with promise and hope.