A gifted generation of USA players have all left. The group, however, will ultimately be remembered as the one that never achieved what it could have
Peter Della Penna18-May-2015Three stalwarts of USA cricket got together for one final hurrah last October in Malaysia to try to push USA beyond the Division Three speed bump that had derailed them on two previous occasions in Hong Kong in 2011 and Bermuda in 2013. But the third time was not a charm.One by one, the three of them have walked away from the game. Aditya Thyagarajan in November, Sushil Nadkarni in December, Usman Shuja in May. Shuja’s announcement effectively closes the chapter on a gifted generation of USA players but ultimately a group that never achieved what it could have.On paper, USA’s qualification for the 2004 Champions Trophy is the country’s most illustrious accomplishment, but the squad that made it to the tournament was on its last legs. Only two players, Steve Massiah and Leon Romero, were under the age of 30. Five others were over 40 and their average age of 36 was two years more than the oldest player in Australia side – Darren Lehmann – that bowled USA out for 65 before chasing down the target inside of eight overs.Less than a year later, USA finished bottom of their group, and 10th overall, at the ICC Trophy in Ireland to miss out on World Cup qualification while their Americas rivals Bermuda and Canada secured spots for the 2007 event in the Caribbean. A short time later, USA were in trouble off the field with the first of two ICC administrative suspensions. After a squad house-cleaning, the regeneration of the team began in 2006 with the appointment of Massiah as captain but more importantly the addition of players like Nadkarni, Shuja, as well as Lennox Cush, who garnered success through the Stanford Twenty20 competition and Carl Wright, a former first-class wicketkeeper from Jamaica.By 2008, this group was joined by Thyagarajan as well as Orlando Baker and Sudesh Dhaniram, two more players with West Indian first-class experience, not to mention the explosive Rashard Marshall, a Jamaican immigrant who smashed a Brian Lara-led West Indies XI in New York for an unbeaten 90 off 56 balls a few summers before. USA thumped World Cup participants Bermuda and Canada on their way to an undefeated ICC Americas tournament title that November. With the advent of Twenty20 cricket opening up a new avenue for climbing the global cricket ladder, this stable of promising talent seemed capable of scaling bigger heights than what had been achieved in 2004.Fourteen months later, former Guyana first-class medium pacer Kevin Darlington established himself as a regular in the team and USA kicked off their World T20 Qualifier campaign with a resounding six-wicket win over Scotland that featured a 97-run stand between Cush and Wright. USA’s squad on that Asian tour included seven players with first-class experience, not to mention a player in Imran Awan who by some accounts was the fastest bowler in Associate cricket in his mid-2000s heyday.Even though this squad produced wins over Scotland, Canada, Bermuda and Hong Kong from 2008 to 2012, when any player is asked to pick their most memorable win, they unflinchingly recall the game against Nepal in Kathmandu to round off group play at 2010 ICC WCL Division Five. USA was coming off a bad loss to Singapore and needed a victory to secure promotion against the then undefeated host country. The riots instigated by the 15,000 strong crowd with USA in tense pursuit of the target certainly added to the drama and has contributed to the mythical status the match has taken on since.However, one reason the players might assign so much meaning to that game is looking back in a nostalgic sense. When that much talent was able to come together to work in tune like a well-oiled machine, anything seemed possible for USA. They did it again on the opening day of Division Three in Hong Kong in 2011, with Wright, Massiah and Nadkarni hardly breaking a sweat against the new ball 140 kph bowling attack of Irfan Ahmed and Aizaz Khan to chase the host’s 256 with seven wickets to spare. A week later, USA found itself in last place and relegated following a pair of humbling defeats at the hands of a dibbly-dobbly arsenal from Denmark.Standalone days of glory are pretty much all the USA players from the last decade have to hang their hats on. Raw talent carried USA through to significant achievements here and there, but only in a few instances could they consistently string together enough wins to deliver meaningful tournament titles. A lack of administrative help in the form of pre-tournament preparation had a debilitating effect on the team and was frequently to blame for poor results. USA now maintains a curious view from a distance while teams they have proven they can beat – Nepal, Hong Kong, Scotland – compete in the Intercontinental Cup and WCL Championship.The first wave to leave this generation – Darlington, Wright, Cush – did so after the 2011 Hong Kong tour debacle. Aside from Shuja, Nadkarni and Thyagarajan, a few others have more or less exited the USA scene as well since the Malaysia tour. Massiah has not made any formal announcement regarding his future, but he allegedly told several players on the team bus ride to the airport in Kuala Lumpur on the way back home from Division Three that he had probably played his last game for USA. Former captain Baker had some choice words for the USACA leadership following USA’s relegation performance in Malaysia and doesn’t expect to be invited back to play again either.Moving forward, USA has a decent young nucleus to be hopeful about, spearheaded by the opening combination of Steven Taylor and Fahad Babar. The pipeline of first-class talent migrating from overseas hasn’t dried up either with Timil Patel’s legspin turning heads in Indianapolis at the ICC Americas Division One T20. However, the future only holds little promise unless they get proper support.A dysfunctional administration got in the way of the USA’s last generation from maximising their on-field potential. If the same outcome is to be avoided for the emerging talents of USA’s next generation, today’s players must receive better administrative assistance particularly in terms of preparation and training. Otherwise, they’ll meander through their brief amateur careers before joining the likes of Shuja, Thyagarajan and Nadkarni full-time in the 9-5 workforce, pausing every so often to share tales of what might have been.
