Today we have written to the USA cricket community to announce we will be carrying out a second peer review process as the final step towards holding USA Cricket Board elections. Following a quite extraordinary response to the opening of registration for membership to USA Cricket we undertook an initial peer review, where we published the draft list of eligible voters, for the community to provide their feedback on.

The rationale for the peer review was two-fold; firstly, transparency. We committed to the whole community that we would be open throughout this process and publishing the list was an important part of that. The second was to allow us to be able to guarantee the integrity of our data and allow the community to unite behind the elections. After all our overarching aim is to unite the sport in the USA to allow it to flourish and achieve its true potential.

The initial review and our planned data clean up threw up a number of issues, including duplicate entries, multiple alignment with ‘primary’ clubs and suspected illegitimate memberships. With the support of SFAG colleagues, the ICC Project USA team and our independent auditors, Biggs Kofford (CPA), we have conducted a forensic review of the issues that were identified during the initial peer review process. We established clear and transparent principles to deal with these issues and made sure that these principles were consistently applied. Every decision we have made has been reviewed by the independent election auditor and we are now confident that the revised list is a true record of every individual, club and league that is eligible to vote.

But in the interests of completeness, we felt that it was important to give the community one final chance to review the list before we progress to the elections. This of course will mean a short delay in the elections taking place, but the SFAG is entirely comfortable with that. Better a short delay now to ensure we get the first elections for the Board of USA Cricket absolutely right and start our new governing body off on the right foot from the word go, than to rush into the election and face questions over its integrity.

While delays may be frustrating, we need to keep our minds focused on the big picture – and that is creating a governing body that is capable of uniting the USA cricket community and harnessing the power of that community to grow the sport. Doing the right thing for the good of the sport in the USA is at the front and center of our mind at every step of the way.

Full details of how to review the final lists can be found here and we encourage you to be part of this last step before we can hold historic elections. On behalf of USA Cricket, we extend my thanks to every single one of you who have been part of this process, your commitment and your patience is a great sign for the future of the game we all love.

The SFAG – Dr. Vince Adams, Donna Bowes, Jim Isch, Jagan Jagannathan, Priyantha Liyanage, Shiraz Najam, Syed Shahanawaz, Patricia Whittaker