Annual Report for 2020

USA CRICKET A N N U A L R E P O R T 2W W W0. U S A C R I C K2E T . O R G 0 CONTENTS 0 3 C H A I R M A N ' S R E P O R T 0 5 C E O ' S R E P O R T 1 1 F O U N D A T I O N A L P L A N 1 3 I M P R O V I N G P E R F O R M A N C E O F N A T I O N A L T E A M S 1 5 I N C R E A S I N G P A R T I C I P A T I O N 1 7 B O A R D C O M M I T T E E S USA CRICKET ANNUAL REPORT 2020 02 C H A I R M A N ' S R E P O R T On behalf of the USA Cricket Board of Many of those developments are Directors, I am pleased to present USA described in this report, but I wanted to Cricket’s Annual Report for 2020. highlight the following exciting activities The COVID pandemic meant that it was a that we were involved in during 2020 and year unlike any other and this presented a which continue into 2021, each of which range of operational, safety and financial have the potential to significantly challenges that sporting organizations accelerate our journey: have never faced before. We worked together with our In spite of those challenges, I am very colleagues at Cricket West Indies in pleased with the amount of progress that order to formally express interest in we have been able to make throughout hosting future major ICC events in the the year. And although we have had less next rights cycle (2023-2031), and we domestic and international cricketing are optimistic about the prospect of activity that we would have liked, we have securing such events when they are taken many significant steps forward in allocated later in 2021. our efforts to lay a platform for the future growth of cricket in this country. We have been working closely with the ICC in order to explore the prospect of The publication of our Foundational Plan cricket’s inclusion in the 2028 Olympic in October is probably the most important Games in Los Angeles. That work will piece of work that we were able to continue during 2021 and we are complete during the year. It will underpin optimistic that alignment is beginning and direct all of our decision making going to take place and that we will have a forward and sets a clear vision for cricket central role to play in moving that to become a mainstream sport in the USA aspiration forward. and for USA Cricket to become a Full Member of the ICC by 2030. The first three years of that journey are all about laying a platform for future growth, and we have continued throughout 2020 to put the building blocks in place to enable the full realization of the potential for cricket in America. USA CRICKET ANNUAL REPORT 2020 03 We helped our partners at Major League ..as well as our management team led by Cricket to secure Grand Prairie stadium in our Chief Executive, Iain Higgins, and the Dallas, which is likely to become the future wide network of partners and volunteers home of USA Cricket and a High- across the USA. Performance Centre; and we will continue to provide Major League Cricket with I would like to finish by paying tribute to additional support in their efforts to secure everyone in the wider American cricket similar facilities during 2021 as they community, who have been a fantastic develop the much-needed cricketing support to us all through these difficult infrastructure that will help to support a times. professional domestic T20 tournament. On behalf of the USA Cricket Board, our In line with our strategic focus areas on sincere thanks go to you all for your women/girls and youth, we secured the ongoing assistance in sustaining the sport hosting rights to two of the ICC’s Regional across America during one of the toughest Pathway Events to be held in the summer times that the sport will ever have to of 2021. endure. Our league, clubs and academies wouldn’t exist without your passion, We look forward to progress on all of these commitment and love for the game, and we initiatives during 2021, confident that USA look forward to nurturing and supporting Cricket is well placed to effectively support you all in 2021 as cricket starts to return. them and capitalize on them as they materialize. I now invite you to read and enjoy the content of our 2020 Annual Report! The progress that is outlined in this report wouldn’t have been possible without the huge amount of time, effort and leadership shown by each of my fellow directors on our Board.. PARAAG MARATHE USA CRICKET CHAIRMAN USA CRICKET ANNUAL REPORT 2020 04 C E O ' S R E P O R T ..on player contracts all acknowledging the 2020 was a year with unprecedented reduced level of cricketing activity and future challenges for the world, and the COVID financial uncertainty that the sport was facing pandemic presented significant challenges for globally. USA Cricket, with very little domestic and international cricket possible on the field-of- During this period we also restructured the play and calendars, budgets and activity plans governance model of USA Cricket, appointing constantly being postponed and revised. a brand-new set of Committees and allocating their responsibilities across the evolving Travel and other restrictions created barriers Foundational Plan. We were also able to to zonal and national team training and complete various structural, planning and competition, whilst social distancing and other research efforts that were needed so that we measures designed to protect the public’s were better equipped and in position to be health created barriers for cricket to continue able to operate more effectively as soon as the in schools, communities and at a local level time came. generally. All of this needed cautionary and careful scenario planning and management off Pleasingly, the final quarter of 2020 saw an the field of play, which was extremely increased level of operational activity to build frustrating for us all. on that planning effort and some significant developments were released in the form of the But in many ways, freedom from delivering a launch of the Foundational Plan, the raft of cricketing outcomes for this period establishing of Minor League Cricket, and the allowed us to spend time focusing on laying securing of a cricket specific venue at Grand the foundations that were much needed, and Prairie, Texas. which will stand us in much better shape as cricket returns in 2021 and we seek to meet There are a number of things we highlight in the high expectations demanded by a starved this Annual Report, but the most important cricketing community. was the launch of our Foundational Plan in September. The five strategic objectives set 2020 is certainly a year that none of us will out within the plan will be the driving force ever forget, but I believe USA Cricket emerges behind all of our major decisions moving from it in a strong position and further down forward and, if we can continue to make the path towards realizing some of the progress across all of those, we believe will set potential that exists for growth in the United us on the path towards achieving our vision of States. making cricket a mainstream sport in the USA whilst achieving Full Member status within the We spent the first three-quarters of 2020 ICC. understanding and readjusting to COVID, with the imposition of recruitment freezes, salary A progress report of our achievements during cuts for staff and reduced expenditure... 2020 against each of those strategic objectives can be found below: USA CRICKET ANNUAL REPORT 2020 05 Later sections in this report expand on the With these challenges firmly behind us, and progress made on the field to improve the the early success with the membership model, performance of the national teams and to we appear well set to finally bring together the increase participation levels and to engage entire cricket community. more people with the sport at all levels. However, it’s worth noting that significant We have made significant efforts to publish a strides forward were also made on two of the large volume of updates, media releases, blogs other strategic objectives (building trust in the and communications at regular intervals community and operating in a sustainable throughout 2020, in order to ensure that manner), as well as in building the critical there was regular communications and support environment. updates from USA Cricket to the community. We saw record interaction levels on USA B U I L D I N G T R U S T I N Cricket’s social media channels with those communications and we were delighted to be T H E C O M M U N I T Y acknowledged for our innovation as the Regional Winner of the ICC Development Following a tender process in 2020, a Awards 2020 for the ICC Digital Fan technology company was appointed to Engagement of the Year. develop a bespoke membership portal. A huge amount of time and effort went into the We look forward to increasing the levels of development of that portal in the latter half of communication yet further, especially 2020 which we believe, in time, will help to following the Board’s acknowledgement at the bring together the entire US cricket end of 2020 of the requirement to publish community.

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