USA Cricket cash flow situation critical; ICC suspends funding for third quarter: Report

New York, Oct 2 (IANS) The International Cricket Council (ICC) has reportedly suspended funds to USA Cricket for the third quarter for its failures to provide the “Q2 Financial Report that was due at the end of June 2022”, along with the minutes of the “2021 AGM”.

A report on emerging cricket.com said on Sunday that, USA Cricket members were alerted to the “worrying” current state of the national governing body in a letter from interim chairman, Atul Rai.

The report added that Rai had written to members directly for the first time since taking over as interim chairman of USA Cricket in August.

The letter added that USA Cricket had not paid its employees or players for some time now, and have “more than USD200,000 of pending invoices”.

In his letter reportedly addressed the USA Cricket member, Rai said, “It has been almost two months since the 2020 elections were finally completed and I was appointed as the interim chairman of USA Cricket Board. While I want to help bring about the change so desperately needed in the system, I am also trying to absorb the challenges that USA Cricket has thrown at me since taking on the new role.”

Detailing the financial issues plaguing USA Cricket, he said that when he assumed office he came to know that the financial report for the second quarter ending June 2022, was never submitted.

“Soon after assuming the office, we were informed that the Q2 Financial report that was due at the end of June 2022, was never submitted! In addition, the 2021 audited financial report that was also due on June 30 was not submitted despite several deadline extensions provided by ICC. The report also required the minutes of the 2021 AGM that was never conducted! You may recall that the 2020 AGM was held in May 2021!

Rai informed the ICC had suspended funding for the third quarter due to non-compliance.

“Consequently, ICC has suspended our 3rd quarter funding for non-compliance. I was surprised and disappointed to learn that USA Cricket has been missing the submission deadlines for quite some time now! The current cash flow situation of USA Cricket is critical, as we have defaulted on employee salaries and USA players’ salaries.

“In addition, there were more than USD200K of pending invoices from previous non budgeted expenditure that was overdue, and we are planning for them to be paid, having paid a significant portion of it already. Moving forward, the calendar and the budget will be published In January and there will be no expenses outside of the budget,” he wrote in the letter.

–IANS

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