USA Cricket Faces Legal Trouble Amid New Lawsuit :

USAC or USA Cricket is succumbing to yet another lawsuit after current Atul Rai has sued the board alongside fellow ex directros of the board Kuljit Nijjar, Arjun Gona and Patricia Whittaker and their dealings with the incumbent board Venu Pisike, Srini Salver, Pintoo Shah, David Haubert, Nadia Gruny, Anj Balusu over what seems to be an alleged case of governance 'misconduct'. This suit was filed with Boulder County District Court located in Colorado along with claims of certain key dates prior to elections being ‘manipulated’ and certain voters being purposefully ‘disenfranchised’ so the election results could be controlled. In reinforcing the claim of alleged misgovernance, USAC's failure to conduct elections after Salver and Gruny's terms ended was cited along with the failure to comply with the United States Olympics and Paralympics Committee(USOPC) regulations regarding formation of the Athlete Advisory Committee for the purpose of allowing representation of athletes in relevant decisions.

This lawsuit is bad news for the aggrieved cricket board who have been walking on a tight rope ever since the ICC put a notice of suspension during its AGM in July last year, requiring the board to sort out issues within a year to prevent revocation of membership. The suit also brought to light some selected phrases the USOPC used in rebuking the USAC for being overly ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘distracted by too much infighting’ as to be able to do any meaningful reforms. The USOPC went as far as warning the USAC that it might not automatically qualify to be the National Governing Body (NGB) for the USA at the Los Angeles Olympic Games unless the poor governance continued unabated. If this comes about, it makes out a strong prima facie case for USAC's subsequent deportation from the ICC.

This legal step was initiated after Nijjar, Whittaker, and Gona's termination in February of 2025 following their provisional suspension in July of 2024. It is believed this trio was suspended following a letter that tried to undermine the authority of Pisike and Salver because of alleged misgovernance and was later leaked to Cricbuzz. After these separations, USAC declared the individual elections for directors to replace Nijjar and Gona. In addition, they sought an appropriate candidate to assume the position of the independent female director that was left due to Whittaker’s dismissal.

The responses of the USAC directors requested that all of the defendant members of the board of directors be removed from the USAC board. They also moved to appoint type GBol-Nijjar and type CWhittaker to sustituo the removed directors. And, as well, sought to declare illegal the anticipated individual director elections.