CCUSA comments land Butt in hot water

The PCB has been served a legal notice from the Cricket Council of the United States of America (CCUSA), over comments made by its chairman Ijaz Butt. Earlier in a press release, Butt had referred to the CCUSA as an "illegal" institution, and criticised Javed Miandad, the PCB's director-general, for wanting to take an illegitimate cricket team to China.

"Your defamatory statements represent false and unprivileged expressions of negligence and malice. Your actions have directly insulted the wonderful cricket constituents of the venerable PCB," the CCUSA notice, through attorney David Rubin, read. "Your reference to Mr Miandad working with a non-sanctioned American organisation to try and take an illegal cricket team to compete in China is totally false. Never has CCUSA assembled a cricket team for such purpose. My client demands the retraction of these falsehoods."

In its response, the PCB said the CCUSA was not an ICC-recognized member, and that the ICC had earlier written to the board objecting to any association with the US body. "Upon this, the PCB informed Javed Miandad of the ICC's protest and he clarified not to have any dealings with the CCUSA in an official capacity," a PCB release said.

"The PCB would like to clarify that the United States of America Cricket Association (USACA) is the officially recognised ICC member and any statements made by the chairman on the issue was to reflect the factual position, as the ICC had written to the board, lodging strong concern over any PCB official travelling with CCUSA to China."

The board said that it would attend to the CCUSA notice in due course after consulting its legal advisor.