Forum called to discuss future

In the immediate aftermath of the cancellation of Project USA, senior figures inside the US cricket fraternity will meet to try to come up with a plan to give some purpose and direction for the future.

A meeting of the US Council of League Presidents (CLP), comprising the 25-odd cricket leagues that make up the bulk of USACA membership, has been called for April 14 in Dallas. The meeting has been called by Polam Reddy, president of the Southern California Cricket Association and the top vote-getter for the CLP position in the recently concluded USACA elections. He was one of the nominees who had been challenged by Gladstone Dainty, the USACA president, but was declared the winner on the strength of his support from the league presidents. As president of the powerful Southern California Cricket Association, he can call on his peers to attend the Dallas meeting, and has clearly decided to do so without waiting on a resolution of the "ineligibity" issues.

The Dallas meeting has been given the blessing of Bobby Refaie, who himself is at the centre of the storm after being suspended as USACA secretary by Dainty.

In a letter to CLP members, Refaie said that it was time for everyone to unite to take cricket in the US forward. "It is your clubs that are the real members of this organization, not the USACA executives or board of directors," he said. "You and your member clubs are the ones that stand to gain or lose by what is done in your name."