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The United States of America is 250 not-out. Only 151 more to catch Brian Lara, or 251 more if you're aiming for his First Class record.
It's at that time that USA Cricket finally reaches the pivotal moment in its bankruptcy. On Thursday, after some six weeks of waiting, Judge Michael Romero finally issued his opinion regarding USAC's proposed settlement with American Cricket Enterprises, ruling in favor of both the settlement and the accompanying financing agreement that sees roughly $1.1 million contributed in phases by ACE to USAC to navigate and exit its bankruptcy and begin the healing process for American cricket. In exchange, USAC reinstates the terms sheet with ACE, and the two parties have committed to renegotiating certain elements of that agreement to make it more palatable for the ICC, which had concerns regarding certain elements of the agreement.
This is arguably the most hope that the original vision of the USAC-ACE agreement has had since it was first forged in 2019, before COVID-19 derailed MLC's launch, before inflation derailed any hope of building brick-and-mortar stadiums, before the Venu Crew took power and decided it needed to settle some scores instead of meaningfully governing the sport.
In his opinion, over a month in the making, Romero's ruling decided the main point the seven objections to the settlement hinged on - that the trustee failed to exercise due diligence around ACE's proof of claim, potential litigation pertaining to such, and the ability to seek other sources of post-petition funding - failed to pass muster with the court. Barely.
"Notwithstanding the Trustee’s lackluster effort to solicit financing offers and evaluate ACE’s claims, the Court concludes the Trustee’s decision to enter into the settlement with ACE, nevertheless, shows at least rudimentary due diligence," Romero wrote in his opinion. The trustee, in the judge’s view, engaged in good faith with all the parties and at least had some amount of conversation with the NCL about its alternative proposal, had a conversation with Sesha Kelapatapu about his (or his law firm’s, it’s unclear) objection to the settlement, and all the intricate webs that came with settling the ACE deal. Mark Dennis, the trustee, decided on a settlement with ACE anyway.
Romero further questioned the standing of the Venu Crew and the National Cricket League to object, declaring the NCL "appears to be a competitor to ACE" and purchased claims only after filing its objection, and the league filed no notice of the purchase. Pisike filed a claim nearly five months after the deadline because the court explicitly questioned his standing to object to the settlement for lack of one. The court decided to hear them out "out of an abundance of caution," which basically means Judge Romero took critical time that USA Cricket needs to get itself solvent to tell us what anyone who has followed this process for six weeks before the bankruptcy already knew: that there aren't a lot of serious people in this sport, and they seem to either be getting lousy legal advice or ignoring good legal advice. The latter has credence given the number of pro se admissions by board members which, while illuminating, mean little in court.
Is this the definitive end of things for Venu et al? I can't say for sure. While it's clear they no longer have meaningful authority nor a path back to power, that has been true for a while. It doesn't mean they won't continue filing frivolous objections because they can't just take an L and move on to other projects in the sport. The most important point of the weekend is that the USAC-ACE relationship is well on its way to being repaired, and the fire has been contained, although not quite extinguished. That lays a major plank in the platform to get USA Cricket reinstated by the ICC. More than that, it's necessary to ensure the United States is positioned to capitalize on the 2028 Olympics.
If Dennis and the ICC have waited for the judge's decision before moving forward with any proceedings toward reinstatement, this process may take some time, but if they have chosen not to be idle while awaiting the judge's opinion - because some elements of this have to be done one way or the other, and a rejection of the settlement would have likely ended in Chapter 7 anyway - then a new board and ICC reinstatement could happen well before the end of the calendar year. Smit Patel reported at Cricbuzz that the two parties are working together on a board of independent directors to effectively serve as an interim board through the 2028 Olympics before restoring elections. Whether that will be three independent directors as called for under the current USAC constitution or a full-sized board of 9 or 10 is unclear and largely academic.
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An interim board with the backing of the ICC will carry enormous power. That board will need it. It will need to rewrite USA Cricket's constitution nearly from scratch to purge all the convoluted language and loopholes put in place that allowed this in the first place. It will also need to rebuild the internal culture and staff of USA Cricket. Pisike and his allies were sued by other board members over allegations including hounding all the full-time office staff out of USAC, effectively sabotaging the organization from within until the board and an onside CEO were all that was left. USAC needs media relations, in-house creatives, permanent club and league liaisons, a championship director or possibly two, a volunteer coordinator, a small marketing staff and fundraisers. It needs some of those people to have cricket expertise and some of those people to have mainstream American sports expertise. It also needs more robust accountability mechanisms with actual teeth to ensure the infighting stops and that an unaccountable chairman can't run the organization into the ground simply because he has a majority on the board.
It will also need to hit the infighting at its source. Removing the Venu Crew only pushes the problem away without solving it definitively; the regional leagues and clubs they came from will gladly send another group of power-hungry quasi-authoritarians like them in 2029, and we'll be right back on the path every iteration of American cricket governance has gone down in the 21st century. Clubs must be brought to the table and convinced that strong central governance is in their interest. That requires trust from people loathe to give it, and it must be earned as well as rewarded. That means overcoming centuries of insular attitudes and the elitist nature of cricket, and it will take quite some doing to break that notion in entities that are used to doing basically whatever they want with no consequences by keeping their organizations as small and exclusive as possible.
That's not even the most visible part of turning this battleship. USA Cricket must make the sport more inclusive and must attract people from new audiences and talent pools in order for the game's growth to accelerate the way everyone seems to want it to - or is trying to convince . It needs to be proactive in getting games for both the men's and women's senior teams, U19 teams, and the occasional A side. It needs to organize consistent national championships in 20-over and 50-over cricket, and if MiLC stands in as the former, then it still needs to organize the latter. It also needs 20-over and 50-over championships for women.
These things are unlikely to be profitable in the short-term and maybe even the long-term; however, not doing them simply puts us back at status quo we had before Pisike hit the big red "destroy your cricket admin career" button. The United States has enormous potential, but USA Cricket's efforts to expand cricket's presence on our shores have been far too narrow. The domestic game has shown moderate reach within the Indian diaspora, and while that demographic has considerable relative spending power and enthusiasm for the game, it's 1.5% of the population of the United States. Not all of them can afford to pay for academy access and networking that offers, and not all of those who can afford it will be interested in cricket. Spectator crowds have gone backwards from the launch of the franchise system in 2023 despite considerable enthusiasm from the Indian-American business community to invest in the game through MLC, MiLC, and local league sponsorship. That investment will be meaningless if it doesn't break cricket into the mainstream. A muscular USA Cricket with everyone in the community onside is necessary to achieve that end by getting behind efforts to expand the game recreationally, competitively, and commercially and push. Cricket cannot exist in disjointed pockets in the Bay or Dallas or Atlanta or in five different leagues in Chicago that all hate each other. As Benjamin Franklin put it: Join, or Die.
Every time I go on a podcast or sit down with an international student, I hear excitement about the growth the game has experienced here and hope that it will continue and result in the United States becoming a major player in the global cricket landscape. There is a desire from others around the world to see this succeed.
That enthusiasm is nice to hear, but it doesn't match up with the situation on the ground. The reality is this: the game hasn't actually grown that much since Minor League Cricket launched in 2021, and none of the growth is sustainable under current conditions. Even the stadiums aren't permanent; stands at Pomona are temporary, the Oakland Coliseum is going to be demolished eventually, and Washington's latest pitch to the Frederick City Council also included temporary stands to start because they're not sure it's going to work. Cricket in the United States remains locked behind demographics and economics, closed off to anyone with new or unorthodox ideas as it was until Kerry Packer rolled up and started paying guys what they were actually worth. For a very brief window of time before Paraag Marathe started acting really weird and Pisike took power in a palace coup, it looked like USA Cricket might just lay the groundwork for the cricket boom we all hope to see. What we got was more infighting, more niche drama, more lawsuits. If we want this time to be the last time and not just the next time, the next 180 days are some of the most critical in the game's history in this country. Failure means more of the same, more people interested in ruling cricket instead of governing it.
Americans have a… complicated history with that kind of person. We throw a party about our response to one every year.