USA Cricket is pleased to announce today the creation of a new Men’s Youth Selection Panel, as well as the creation of six new Zonal Selection Panels. These new selection panels will come into place as of October 2020, with all selectors beginning their roles with immediate effect.
The Men’s Youth Selection Panel will primarily be responsible for selecting all USA Men’s Youth teams. It is a five person panel, which will be chaired for the first two years by the USA Men’s Selector, Amer Afzaluddin. He will be joined by four new appointments, all of who have experience of playing international cricket, to serve on the panel for a period of three years.
Men’s Youth Selection Panel:
- Chair – Amer Afzaludin, (Detroit, 2-year term, current USA Men’s Selector)
- Sajith Fernando (Los Angeles, 3-year term, former Sri Lanka player)
- Alvin Kallicharran (Raleigh, 3-year term, former West Indies player)
- Jannisar Khan (Houston, 3-year term, former USA player)
- Steve Massiah (New York, 3-year term, former captain USA team)
In addition, each Men’s Youth Selector will have a broader role as one of three Zonal Selectors responsible for identifying and selecting talented players for both Men’s Zonal and Men’s Youth Zonal squads and teams.
USA Under 19s celebrate a wicket
Today, USA Cricket has also completed the appointment of five of the six additional Zonal Selectors to serve on the new Zonal Selection Panels through to the end of 2021. The Zones that these panels will then serve are geographically based upon the 6 Zones that USA Cricket currently divides the United States into.
Each three-man Zonal Selection Panel will be made up of one Men’s Selector, one Men’s Youth Selector and a newly appointed Zonal Selector.
Zonal Selection Panels:
- East Zone: Michael Voss (Men’s, Los Angeles), Steve Massiah (Youth, New York); Richard Staple (Zonal, New York)
- Mid-Atlantic Zone: Niraj Patel (Men’s, Chicago), Steve Massiah (Youth, New York); Sabin Sundar (Zonal, Washington DC)
- South Zone: Clayton Lambert (Men’s, Atlanta), Alvin Kallicharran (Youth, Raleigh), Mark Johnson (Zonal, Lauderhill)
- Midwest Zone: Niraj Patel (Men’s, Chicago), Amer Afzaluddin (Youth, Detroit), Sami Khan (Zonal, Chicago)
- South West Zone: Orlando Baker (Men’s, Dallas), Jannisar Khan (Youth, Houston), TBC (Zonal)
- West Zone: Michael Voss (Men’s, Los Angeles), Sajith Fernando (Youth, Los Angeles), Krishna Prasad (Zonal, Bay Area)
The first task for the Zonal Selection Panels has been to select players to be invited to attend Zonal Trials being held in 14 locations across the US during October 2020. USA Cricket has received over 1,200 nominations from more than 135 Leagues and Academies nationwide, and groups of 30 Men’s Youth and 30 Men’s Senior players will be invited to attend trials in each of those hubs that were announced last month.
Each Selector from the Zonal Panels will be rostered to attend the Zonal trials over the next month, with the objective of subsequently selecting and supporting extended Men’s and Men’s Youth Zonal squads moving forward.
As per the USA Cricket Board Meeting last month, the staging of National Championships for Men or Women remains a very challenging exercise with further work being done currently to evaluate their feasibility. A final decision will be made in mid-October on whether to go ahead or not with any of them. If the National Championships proceed, each Zonal Panel will have the additional task of selecting their respective Men’s and Men’s Youth Zonal playing squads.
USA Cricket Operations Director, Richard Done said, “Announcing our panels of Men’s Youth Selectors and Men’s Zonal Selectors is a significant stride forward on the path to developing a more comprehensive National Performance structure. We are incredibly lucky to have been able to appoint selectors to both sets of panels with real cricketing calibre right across the board. USA Cricket would like to congratulate all of those appointed and thank everyone for their commitment to advancing cricket across the United States in the coming years.”
