Cricket World Cup’s CEO Chris Dehring was last week named as the independent third party (ITP) in the ongoing efforts of the United States of America Cricket Association seeking to have the International Cricket Council lift the suspension imposed on the governing body of cricket in the United States.

Following the recent intervention of past West Indies Cricket Board president Ken Gordon at a meeting of USACA executives and a group of league presidents represented by a Reconciliation Commission headed by New York’s Eastern American Cricket Association president John Aaron, a committee comprising four lawyers and incoming WICB president Ambassador Julian Hunte, was set up to revisit the constitutional document that USACA sought to have ratified just before the ICC deadline expired, earlier this year. That review committee has since completed a thorough review of the document and was expected to share it with a three-man committee comprising USACA’s president Gladstone Dainty, John Aaron and the newly appointed Chris Dehring.

According to the terms of reference of Mr. Dehring’s involvement as an ITP, he will supervise the discussion of the ways and means of distributing the revised document to the USACA’s member clubs for ratification, verification of such ratification, the overseeing of elections across the cricket regions of the USA and the Executive Board of USACA, with all said elections to be completed before November 30, 2007.

Mr. Dehring’s role is a pivotal one, because he brings to the table the organizational skills and negotiation savvy that earned him tremendous respect beyond the nine Caribbean CWC 2007 host-governments, in his coordination and successful handling of the world tournament held recently in the Caribbean. A very successful investment banker in Jamaica, Dehring’s curriculum vitae ideally suits the current state of cricket and its development in this region. It is hoped that he brings a larger vision for the further development of the game, beyond the house-keeping chores which he will supervise in the coming months.

However, Mr. Dehring’s immediate task will be to serve as the moderator of the proceedings surrounding the earlier call by the Reconciliation Commission for true governance and transparency in US cricket. That call was made by the five-member Reconciliation Commission who met with USACA executives, WICB’s Ken Gordon and its senior legal counsel Derek Jones, in Maryland, two months ago. That meeting was precipitated by a call for a reconciliation of the issues of governance and transparency that led to the suspension by the ICC. The call was applauded by Ken Gordon, who saw it as an opportunity to get some of the principal stakeholders of cricket in the USA, to a table in an effort to map out the best way possible for USACA to satisfy the demands of the ICC and rejoin the international cricket fraternity.

The West Indies Cricket Board acting as agents for the ICC in this part of the world was until recently represented by president Ken Gordon and WICB senior legal counsel Derek Jones. Gordon who demitted office last week, is expected to continue to serve in an advisory capacity to the ongoing process in the USA. However, a meeting has been scheduled for next weekend August 11-12 in Miami, where some members of the constitution review committee will make a formal presentation of the revised document to Dehring, Dainty and Aaron. Newly elected WICB president Julian Hunte is also expected to be in attendance at that meeting.

The current impasse which is the result of the ICC slapping its second suspension on the governing body of cricket in the USA, in as many years, has had a demoralizing effect on the US national players, whose senior team and Under-19 players were denied participation in international tournaments in Darwin, Australia and Toronto, Canada, respectively. Following its suspension, USACA was notified by the ICC that the suspension and freezing of funds would not be lifted until such time as USACA had put its house in order vis-à-vis a constitution being duly ratified, a true state of governance established, and the WICB recommending that the suspension be lifted. Thus Dehring’s role along with that of the WICB’s new president, its outgoing president Ken Gordon and its senior legal representative Derek Jones, S.C., hold all of the fuel cells to USACA’s reentry into the international cricketing atmosphere.

First, the highly awaited constitutional document must be approved by fifty percent of USACA’s member clubs, who, this time around would be given adequate time to review same, before casting a ratification ballot. It is left to be seen whether Chris Dehring, a relative outsider to the political cricket minefield that is USACA and its affiliates, can successfully supervise a process that satisfies the many cricket stakeholders in this country. However, as the official representative of the WICB in the process, he is expected to receive the respect of those involved and who are truly and honestly willing to get cricket back on track in the part of the world.

Mr. Dehring should be cognizant of the many pitfalls that have seen USACA stumble, fall and fail in the past, and of those individuals with agendas that do not necessarily benefit the game in this country.