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By Peter Della Penna
Atul Ahuja, the 44-year-old former CEO of Cricket Canada, has thrown
his hat into the ring of candidates to become the next president of the
USA Cricket Association. Ahuja first broke the news earlier this month
in a series of emails to cricket stakeholders and says he is different
from other candidates because he has walked the walk where others in US
cricket have only talked the talk.
“I’ve done a lot of things that a lot of people have hoped to do
here,” said Ahuja in a phone interview. “I’ve seen the life cycle of how
it can be done, what are the opportunities, what are the trials and
tribulations, what it takes. That’s one. Secondly, I believe that
excellence is a human trait that many people strive for and few achieve.
The team I’ve put together is one that has achieved a lot of
excellence.”
Ahuja has put together a slate of candidates for other positions on
the executive board of USACA as well. So far he has revealed that former
West Indies Test batsman Alvin Kallicharran will be running alongside
Ahuja to be first vice president, former Bangladesh allrounder Yousuf
Rezaur Rahman will run for secretary and US cricket historian David
Sentance will run for treasurer. Ahuja says he decided to run because he
feels he can be a difference maker in US cricket.
“Most people, if you look back at history, that try to make a
difference, they try to make a difference because they believe that they
can and they believe there’s a need to make a difference,” said Ahuja.
“The combination of can and recognizing there’s a need, that creates a
desire to make a difference. I believe that there’s a need to make a
difference, there’s a need to bring change. I believe that there’s a lot
of talent. I believe it’s a huge market. The United States epitomizes
sports management globally. We have the best of sports psychologists,
sports medicine, facilities, you name it. If we’re able to leverage all
that’s there, we can create a world class cricket system.”
When asked what it was like dealing with USACA as Cricket Canada’s CEO, Ahuja says his interactions were limited.
Image (right) - Atul Ahuja
“US Cricket was in a different place,” said Ahuja. “It still did not
have One-Day International status so that kind of did not allow Canada
to play One-Day cricket with the United States and the best you could
potentially do was play friendly cricket. Being in Canada at the time,
my focus was that if we have One-Day status, then we should play with
other countries that have One -Day status and preferably countries that
are at a higher level so that our team constantly was challenged and it
helped develop the players for the upcoming, at that point, World Cup
Qualifier.”
Ahuja says the accomplishment he was most proud of in his time as
Cricket Canada’s CEO was getting four Full Member nations to play on
Canadian soil.
“For the first time ever we had four Full Member countries come to
play Canada on Canadian soil. We had the West Indies come and play us,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. To be able to get four Full Member
boards to take an Associate nation seriously I think was the biggest
accomplishment.” He also listed Cricket Canada’s sponsorship with
Scotiabank as another highlight of his tenure.
In order for the USA to get to the same level as Canada in Division
One of the Associate nations and the ODI status that comes with it,
Ahuja says that high performance systems need to be put in place and
part of that is creating a pathway to allow for such a system to
succeed.
“We need to take cricket out into the mainstream,” said Ahuja. “We
need to create cricket moms, not just soccer moms. So how do we do that?
How do we have cricket outreach programs? So I’m putting in place a
cricket outreach program. A schools program and a cricket outreach
program are extremely important to make sure that we are constantly
feeding children into the system and that helps in various ways. The
more kids we have playing cricket, the more people that cricket touches,
the better the chance is for us to go out and get a sponsorship for
these programs. Sponsorships are very numbers based. So if a corporate
sponsor comes in and they believe that there’s 100,000 kids that play
cricket or have interest in cricket, you’ll find that the sponsorship
dollars are pretty much in line with the numbers that play the game.”
When asked how he planned on getting league presidents to commit to
grassroots development when little interest has been shown toward doing
so by league administrators in recent history, Ahuja responded, “I have
faith in the fact that what has been demonstrated globally, most people
tend to adapt to it.”
“If you follow any professional high performance pathway that’s
worked and demonstrated globally, any sport that’s grown in a country
that does not traditionally play it, let’s look at skiing in Australia.
That’s a sport that’s really not on the national scene in Australia, but
it’s a sport that has actually grown. They’ve got some world class
skiers in Australia, Olympic level skiers in Australia. Let’s take
soccer in the United States. In any high performance pathway, building
from the ground up is essential. That’s proven and that’s the way to do
it and that’s what we’re going to do.”
In terms of revamping the USACA governance structure, Ahuja says he
would advocate a one term limit for the role of USACA president.
“It’s very important that anybody in a leadership position goes in
there to leave a legacy and it shouldn’t be a case of they don’t leave
at all which is what we see a lot of. That shouldn’t happen. A refresh
every few years is very good for the system. It makes it more inclusive.
You’ll find there’s a lot more stakeholders in the system that will
feel motivated to come in and contribute and participate,” said Ahuja.
“A lot of people ask me, ‘But the US President serves two terms.’ I say
the day our cricket system is as mature as the United States government,
we can relook at that but at the moment the president should serve one
term and he or she should be focused on leaving a legacy in that one
term. The board members could potentially serve three terms, two or
three terms, that’s the executive committee and that’s fine because you
need some continuity. We need to make sure the organization is bigger
than the individual.”
Asked for his thoughts on the delays in the USACA elections, Ahuja
said that it has damaged USACA’s credibility, something that he hopes to
restore if he gets a chance to serve as president.
“I think we need to bring integrity back into the system,” said
Ahuja. “For any individual to have credibility, to be believed, you need
to build trust. You need to build integrity and it’s very important to
build trust. How do you build trust? You build trust when you do what
you say you’ll do. My way of building trust is that if this election was
supposed to happen at a particular point in time, it should have. Now
if the goalpost has been moved, then there better be a good reason but
yet again it’s a question of trust and what happens is that people will
only put up with a lack of trust until a point in time.”
Ahuja is originally from Pune, India and now lives in Atlanta where
he is the president and CEO of an IT firm. He first came to the USA in
1999 when he moved to Los Angeles. While there, he was a member of
British & Dominion Cricket Club in the SCCA until 2002 when he moved
to Toronto. Ahuja was hired as Cricket Canada’s CEO in November of 2007
but was fired without cause in January 2009. He says he does not
believe the way his time ended with Cricket Canada will have any
negative effect on his run for USACA President, saying that it is up to
the voters to decide who is best.
“I have been an ardent guardian of the game and a catalyst for its growth,” said Ahuja, “and I’ve demonstrated it.”