Dutta has run afoul of Cricket Canada.
AB Wire
NEW YORK: Canada’s current best bowler in cricket Nikhil Dutta has been shunted out of 21 players shortlisted from the US, Canada, Bermuda and Suriname for an ICC Americas regional team that will take part in West Indies’ Nagico Super50 tournament in January, 2016.
These 21 shortlisted players will be joined by an additional 6 to 10 players selected after a phase one trial to be held in Indianapolis, September 18th. From that total group, a team comprising of 14 players will be culled by coaches Courtney Walsh and Mike Young, for the 50 overs tournament in the West Indies.
The 20-year old off-spinner Dutta, who was Canada’s best bowler at the Americas qualifier in May, and later won a CPL contract with St Kitts & Nevis Patriots, has run afoul of Cricket Canada, and his non-selection for the shortlisted team so far is no doubt because of that running battle.
Dutta had pulled out from the national squad for the World T20 qualifier to play in the CPL. Cricket Canada responded by revoking their No Objection Certificate. Since then a dispute has risen between the two parties, reported ESPN.
Cricket Canada president Vimal Hardat said Dutta had sent an email on June 28 about his intention to withdraw from the World T20 qualifier. Although Dutta’s representatives acknowledge the email, they allege it was in response to the administrators putting pressure on him to drop his CPL commitments and return to Toronto so he could practice with his Canada team-mates.
According to multiple sources, reported ESPN, Cricket Canada general manager Ingleton Liburd then flew to St Kitts on June 29 to personally meet with Dutta and Eric Simons, the Patriots coach. A verbal agreement was made that Dutta could stay in St Kitts for another week before joining the Canada squad in Scotland on July 7, two days prior to their first match of the World T20 qualifier.
But, sources claim officials in Canada disregarded Liburd’s efforts and later that day applied to the ICC to replace Dutta with Hiral Patel, and also revoked Dutta’s NOC.
The ESPN report said the shortlist to phase two of the trial in Indianapolis was decided based on the players’ performances at the Americas qualifier and the World T20 qualifier, and recommendations from each country’s board. Since Cricket Canada did not nominate Dutta, Evans said his status for the trial is on hold.
“They are working through a process with Nikhil given what happened at the CPL,” Evans told ESPNcricinfo. “We hope that can be rectified and he can then be included straight into phase two, but if not we hope that he’ll come to phase one and would make it through. We hope he and Cricket Canada can work through some of their issues and we see him involved in this process because he’s an exciting talent.”
The 21 shortlisted players:
Bermuda: Christian Burgess, Delray Rawlins.
Canada: Cecil Pervez, Farhan Malik, Hamza Tariq, Junaid Siddiqui, Navneet Dhaliwal, Nitish Kumar, Ruvindu Gunasekera, Saad Bin Zafar, Satsimranjit Dhindsa.
Suriname: Muneshwar Patandin, Wasim Akram Haslim.
USA: Akeem Dodson, Fahad Babar, Hammad Shahid, Muhammad Ghous, Naseer Jamali, Nicholas Standford, Steven Taylor, Timil Patel.