The International Cricket Council (ICC) has granted the controversial USA Cricket (USAC) a three-month respite due to persistent governance concerns and ambiguity over its involvement in squad selection for the 2028 Olympics, which will be hosted in Los Angeles.
The decision was made at the ICC’s annual board meeting in Singapore on Saturday, July 19, during which USAC’s progress, or lack thereof, was discussed. The American Cricket Board has been under fire for about a year after being placed on notice during the 2024 ICC Annual Conference with a directive to correct internal administrative and governance deficiencies.
Despite the participation of a Normalisation Committee, which visited the USA last month, little appears to have been accomplished.
The problem has been more contentious as USAC’s relationship with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), the country’s highest Olympic body, has deteriorated. However, the ICC did not sanction USAC, maybe due to the significance of the United States hosting the LA28 Olympic Games, when cricket will make its return after nearly a century.
Despite its internal upheaval, the United States’ men’s and women’s teams are anticipated to qualify automatically for the Olympics as the host nation. However, the bigger concern now is who will choose those teams, with USAC’s authority called into question and ICC authorities considering other interim processes if governance difficulties are not addressed.
In response, the ICC decided to use a hybrid qualification format for the LA28 Games. Under this approach, certain teams will qualify based on ICC T20 rankings, while others must compete in Olympic qualifiers. India, currently placed first in the ICC Men’s T20I rankings, is anticipated to qualify automatically, regardless of the ranking cut-off date.
Meanwhile, the ICC Board has formed a working group to evaluate and recommend structural improvements to all three formats of the game. These proposals are scheduled to be announced on Monday, July 21, the last day of the Singapore conclave.
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