The popular United States of America Cricket Association (USACA) Bulletin Board, which had displayed nearly 3000 posts from US cricketers in less than three months, finally went "off-line" on September 3, 2002, after having been re-opened for a few weeks. This time, we are reliably informed, it is final.

Those who were trying to access it during its first shut-down had been receiving a cryptic message-- they were "not authorized" to view the Discussions section because they did not have the "proper credentials". Now the message is much more stark-- neither the Bulletin Board nor its directory "exists".

There had been no explanation for the shut-down on USACA'a Home Page. E-mails to USACA asking what had happened went unanswered. Repeated inquiries finally elicited an indirect explanation that the Bulletin Board had been disabled and would be back online "soon". The only direct response (by a USACA officer, to an e-mail from CRICINFO-USA) was that the Board was being moved to a different server, and would return to the Web once the transfer was complete.

The closure was rather abrupt for a bulletin board which has been praised as one of the few forums in the USA where open, free-ranging discussions about the current and future states of US cricket had taken place. It was the brainchild of Chico Khan, the former Webmaster of USACA, and was one of the features that had survived the changes in the USACA Administration in 2001, giving the USACA Web site a visibility it had never enjoyed before. Perhaps its past had finally caught up with it-- one never knows.

USACA's Bulletin Board had been a valuable storehouse of information for diagnosticians looking for clues and symptoms on the state of US cricket. Discussions on the Board have been lively and animated, often acrimonious, and at times descending into near-libel and mutual abuse. This was the price for keeping the Board completely open, allowing "anonymous" posts without fear of being publicly identified. But for most readers, the price had been worth paying-- in between the trash and the garbage, there were nuggets of valuable infomation, reports about what was really going on, and revealing insights into the moods and attitudes of many US cricketers.

In the absence of hard information, there were the usual theories about what had been happening behind the scenes. In recent days, the Board had been full of attacks and criticisms-- about problems with the Malaysia tour of the USA "A" team, about Dr. Atul Rai and his stewardship of the USACA, and about the upcoming elections to the USACA Board of Directors which is supposed to take place in July. Had all this proved to be too much for USACA, which had chosen to "pull the plug" rather than to confront the arguments and the issues? Or was this a truly technical problem that the Webmaster was trying to deal with-- in which case, why had there been no announcement of the proposed shutdown, and an explanation of when the problems would be remedied? There were no easy answers-- and a definite sense that there was more to all this than meets the unwary eye.

Whatever the case, there is, for now, only the sound of silence on the USACA Web site where the Discussions had been. And many burning issues that were being discussed on the Bulletin Board will, it seems, continue to fester inside the Byzantine labyrinths of US cricket politics, as they had done in the past.

For the present, the forum operated by the USCRICKET.COM Web site is the only remaining discussion board for US Cricket issues. Although overshadowed in the past by USACA's Bulletin Board, it may well pick up on the void left by USACA, and could come into its own as the premier locus for US cricket discussions.

[ POSTCRIPT :-- After the article was written, we learned that the suspension of the Bulletin Board was the outcome of a decision by the USACA Executive at the highest levels. Meanwhile, CRICINFO sent the following official letter to Paul DaSilva, Web Master of USACA, on the subject of the Bulletin Board.

As of July 20, we had not received a reply, but the Discussion Board was re-opened on July 20, 2002 without any explanation.

At first, there were fewer new postings or live topics, compared to the volume of topics and posts when the Bulletin Board was at its most active. This gradually changed over the month of August, as the Bulletin Board returned to something like its former vivacity.

The final axe fell after the USACA Board meeting of Labor Day Weekend 2002 in Los Angeles, where the coup de grace seems to have been administered. As of September 3, 2002, the USACA Bulletin Board finally ceased to exist, and became only a memory. ]

"Paul:

" I have not heard back from you since I e-mailed you several weeks ago about the Bulletin Board.
"I did hear back from ...[the] Secretary of USACA, telling me the board was being moved to a different server and would be reopened as soon as this was done. He also told me he was forwarding my e-mail to you, expecting (I assume) that you would deal with this matter directly.
"However, the Board still seems to be down, there is no explanation on the USACA Home Page, nor any official announcement about when it is to be reopened.

"I regard this situation as very serious, in view of all the circumtances involved. Taking [the USACA Secretary's] e-mail to me as the official situation as far as the USACA is concerned, I urgently request that an announcement be printed in the USACA Home Page at your very earliest convenience, and a "date certain" for the reopening of the Bulletin Board be announced without further delay. In my view as well as that of many US cricketers, this would be performing a great service for US cricket.

"I look forward to your early action on this matter. Please consider this an official letter from CRICINFO-USA, to be treated accordingly.

"Regards,
Deb K. Das, USA Coordinator, CRICINFO".