USA

USA
A year that started full of promise ended with the sudden and unexplained dismissal of the high-profile Don Lockerbie as chief executive. When the USA Cricket Association, again operating behind a wall of secrecy, broke cover to announce a "multi-million dollar deal with New Zealand Cricket", the jury remained out on its actual value, as many of the grand promises contained therein had been made before, mainly by Lockerbie, but had never come to anything. An attempt to stage a Twenty20 event featuring Sri Lanka and New Zealand in Florida cost USACA a lot of money and did little to show that the US was ready to host top-level cricket; it may also have been a major factor in Lockerbie's removal. Attempts by the ICC to fast-track the USA into the Twenty20 World Cup floundered in the qualifying event, but there was good news as the side continued their rise up the World Cricket League.
What 2011 holds If - and it is a massive if - some of the promises of USACA come to light then the future might be more promising. But recent history contains so much unfulfilled rhetoric from USACA, few are holding their breaths.