beegee:

Now that the US U19 boys are one loss away from being the lowest ranked team, the entire USACA management headed by Dainty Gladstone have to be held accountable and not keep deflecting blame.  Unless we get professional about how teams get selected and who is part of the team management (coach, fitness trainer, physio, media, etc.) we will keep failing and wonder why.  And part of getting professional is to weed out corrupt individuals who infest US cricket in all its regions and look out for their own little agenda ignoring the larger good. 

 Do we have the heart and mind to clean things up?  US cricket's well being depends on it.

@beegee....who are you? I don't see you signing your name. Yes, help is needed. Change is the need of the hour but it has nothing to do with the performance of our U-19 team. These are the folks who performed exceedingly well in the national championship. So that's the best we got which is a fact. So I am not much concerned about the team itself but even though I am a Board member, I am not sure as to what the responsibilities are for some of the management team. Cheers! Raj

It looks like Hong Kong have staged a remarkable comeback and beaten Afghanistan. USA will have a tough final match and need to get their heads in the right place for it.

Team and team management selection at any level (U19, U15, Seniors, Womens) is a complex process and when professionally done should reflect a nuanced understanding of players, their temperaments and skillsets, and coaches and their support staff.  The simplistic approach taken in the US to selection reflects a few powerful individuals lacking in cricketing acumen running the show with little accountability. 

I believe the USACA CEO (Don L.) understands the difference better than most despite not being an original cricket man and I seriously hope he stays long enough to make a difference.  And he needs to be surrounded by more professionals committed to cricket who make use of the right resources.

  The cold, hard, fact is that as long as the USA relies soley on

the ex-pat community their competitive level will NEVER really improve.  This team did WORST than the 2006 team. Show me the

progress!  Yeah, I can already hear the excuses: "we don't have the coaches, the facilities, of the full-member countries, boo-hoo."

And why is that?  Because there's no mainstream American interest in cricket, pure and simple.  You can't make a gold

necklace out of a brass knob.  You can coach and coach and coach the ex-pat community all you want, if  you don't have

the talent pool it won't get you anywhere.  And don't look to Lockerbie to change anything.  It's pretty clear he's committed to

the status quo.  All he's been doing since he got into office is globe trot around the world trying to talke full members into giving

the USA more coaching.  A dead end if there ever was one. 

at kriketer..............some of the guys on the team did not perform at the national tournament so the team was not the best in america because there are players like casper davis jr and keviswar bridgepaul who were not selected to the team despite there performances at the national tournament and other tournaments so "hopefully" the best players would be selected next time.