INDIANAPOLIS: Avinash Gaje, Suraj Viswanathan and Venu Pisike have been elected Individual directors of the USA Cricket. After six rounds of preferential voting, Avinash Gaje received 584.54 votes (34.6%) has been selected for a term of three years. Suraj Viswanathan polled 557.23 votes (33.0%) and will serve as Individual director for two- year term. Venu Pisike got 547.98 votes (32.4%) and was elected for one-year term.
In a significant landmark for USA Cricket, the results of the recently completed elections, where seven constituent seats were contested, have been announced after an overwhelming turn-out by the U.S. cricketing community.
In accordance with the election procedures, these results have been validated by both BiggsKofford, a Colorado accounting firm, as well as the ICC in Dubai.
3 Individual Directors (after 6 rounds of preferential voting)
Avinash Gaje: 584.54 votes (34.6%) – 3 year term
Suraj Viswanathan: 557.23 votes (33.0%) – 2 year term
Venu Pisike: 547.98 votes (32.4%) – 1 year term
1 Female Player: Nadia T. Gruny: 16 votes (69.6%) – 2 year term
1 Male Player: Usman Shuja wins with 100.0% of the vote – 1 year term.
1 Club Director (after 4 rounds of preferential voting): Ajith Bhaskar: 66 votes (55.0%) – 2 year term.
1 League Director (after 1 round of preferential voting): Sushil Nadkarni: 12 votes (50.0%).
Atul Rai: 12 votes (50.0%).
As evidenced by the results above, there is still a tie for the League Director position in spite of the preferential voting system used as Mr. Nadkarni and Mr. Rai split all the first place votes in the first round. This meant the other two candidates were both eliminated after round 1 and there were no other first place votes to reallocate after the preferential algorithm ran.
As a result, this election will be rerun starting on Sunday, August 5 and will remain open until Sunday, August 12 at 11:59p PT. The rerun election will use the same 24 League voters and will end sooner if all 24 cast their vote before August 12. If the rerun election also ends in a tie, Mr. Nadkarni and Mr. Rai have agreed to a coin toss to decide the winner.
A remarkable 46% of USA Cricket’s eligible Membership cast their votes, which highlights a commitment to cricket in the United States and sets an extremely positive foundation to move forward for the sport.
The Nominating and Governance Committee, who approved both the League Director runoff as well as the coin toss tiebreaker, are in the process of finalizing their recommendations for the three Independent Directors. This process will be complete by no later than mid-September when the Board will be officially seated and assume governance responsibility for USA Cricket. An application for Membership in the International Cricket Council (ICC) is expected to be submitted to the ICC Board by the end of 2018.
