Ahead of Thursday’s National T20, USA Cricket has made a radical change by replacing their whole national selection committee. The 34-year-old Ravi Timbawala will succeed his Los Angeles citymate Michael Voss in leading the team.
Sunny Sohal, Ritesh Kadu, Barrington Bartley, and Nasir Jamali will support Timbawala.
Shehan Jayasuriya, a former international player for Sri Lanka, wrote to the boarding, citing “inconsistencies” in the selection procedures used to choose the zonal squads. This has led to the appointment.
Three months prior to the start of the T20 World Cup, Voss, Orlando Baker, Niraj Patel, Amer Afzaluddin, and Clayton Lambert were also removed. Voss was the chairman for four years. The removal of players like Jayasuriya, former Pakistani international Sami Aslam, Cameron Gannon, Brody Couch, and Jahmar Hamilton from the zonal squads caused a great deal of public outrage on social media against the departing selection panel.
With his advanced age and continued status as an active cricket player, Timbawala’s selection is not without controversy. Although he played for the SoCal Lashings in the 2023 Minor League T20 (MiLC), he last played for the USA in 2017. In a similar vein, Jamali, 34, last competed for the United States in 2015, however he has been playing with the Dallas Mustangs on the MiLC circuit as late as 2023. Though the US cricket community has been deliberating over the last 15 selections, Greenhorn appointee Timbawala and team will have their work cut out for them over the next few months.
Timbawala’s selection issues are expected to worsen due to the qualification of players from the USA, including Corey Anderson, Harmeet Singh, Unmukt Chand, and Andries Gous, as well as the previous selection committee’s disregard for American expats like Gannon and Hamilton. Due to the lack of USA matches before the World Cup, the new committee will mostly rely on the national T20 team and the MiLCs from previous years to create a viable player pool for choosing the World Cup roster.
