The Cricket Canada board approved three policies at
their March meeting; all are available on the Cricket
Canada web site. The first of these is new and outlines the
consequences for players and officials of taking part in
“disapproved” cricket- tournaments that are not formally
sanctioned by Cricket Canada and fall under the ICC’s
definition of disapproved cricket. This policy is aligned with
ICC recommendations for national cricket bodies in dealing
with these issues.
The other two policies are major revisions of Cricket Canada’s
Harassment (now re-titled “Maltreatment”) and Safe Sport
policies. At a national level, Canada’s sports organizations
have been working hard to improve the way sports deal with
the issues of maltreatment. This has been a major problem in
numerous sports, and cricket at all levels in Canada needs to
take this issue seriously.
Cricket Canada joins with other national sports organizations
in endorsing and adopting the Universal Code of Conduct
to Prevent and Address Maltreatment in Sport (see https://
sirc.ca/safe-sport/uccms/). The UCCMS will provide
the foundation for the development of a coordinated
implementation strategy to prevent and address maltreatment
across all levels of the Canadian sport system, and for all
participants (athletes, coaches, officials, administrators,
practitioners, etc.). The UCCMS is a result of an extensive
consultation process that sought insight and expertise from
within the sport system and from external subject matter
experts.
Maltreatment includes physical, psychological and sexual
maltreatment, and the Code provides comprehensive
definitions. Cricket Canada has thus revised these two policies
to reference and adopt the code in their implementation.
The policies are important in a wider ranging effort to provide
a safe environment in which Cricket Canada can operate its
programmes. Other aspects include volunteer screening ensuring
appropriate checks are made on all those in
positions of power and responsibility, education and training,
and reporting mechanisms.
As part of its commitment to safe sport and in accordance
with Sport Canada requirements, Cricket Canada has enlisted
the services of an Independent Third Party. Ilan Yampolsky
is a highly trained and skilled professional equipped to
deal with the Safe Sport issues with understanding and
confidence. His role is to analyze complaints, determine how
best to address them and ensure the matter is dealt with in a
confidential matter and independently of Cricket Canada. He
will also ensure that Cricket Canada continues to implement
best practices. All individuals who witness or believe they
have witnessed or been a victim or believe they may have
been a victim of a breach of conduct should contact Ilan by
email cricketcanada@itpsport.ca or phone at 1-833-913-
1304.
These policies mostly apply just to programmes and activities
operated directly by Cricket Canada. It is very important that,
in order to provide a safe environment at all levels of cricket
across Canada, that provincial members, leagues and clubs
have their own policies in place. Cricket Canada is happy to
assist our members in developing and implementing such
measures.
We’d like to think our sport is immune from these serious
issues but we need to be vigilant, and ensure we have
good policies that are closely followed in order to protect all
cricketers.
Our strategic planning process is continuing, and we hope
to have a draft plan to members in the next month.
We are evaluating a Cricket Canada official scoring
and statistics software package. There are significant
advantages in all official cricket being centralised on a
single platform, which then can act as a national registration
database. It will be important to ensure that any such
package accommodates the needs of those organizations
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already committed to an existing scoring or statistics application. Discussions with the provinces are underway.
Spring is here, and outdoors cricket is already resuming in British Columbia, but COVID issues are still resulting in major
uncertainty. As we move towards summer, the ability to play cricket will be determined by public health measures in each
province. We published our planned calendar of events, and we’re pleased to add the Auty Cup series for late July, but all
depends on public health measures allowing competition, with international competition under special scrutiny. Keep an eye
on the Cricket Canada web site for any updates and revisions to the schedule.
Note that all dates should be considered tentative, based on the evolving impact of the global pandemic. All Canadian
based events are dependent on obtaining permission from Federal and Provincial health authorities. Most events
are still in the planning stages, with grounds and venues to be determined
Date Venue Event
May 7 – 9 Vancouver Women’s Western T20
June 4-6 Ontario Men’s Central T20
June 4-6 Vancouver Men’s Western T20
June 4-6 Ontario Women’s Central/ Eastern T20
June 4-6 New Brunswick Men’s Eastern T20 (date tentative, may be moved to
July)
June 10 -13 Ontario Men’s National Championship
June 10-13 Ontario Women’s National Championship
July 11-17 Ontario Canada Cup U18
July 15 – 24 Ontario
ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Americas Qualifier; Argentina,
Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, Canada, Cayman
Islands, Panama, USA
July 26-30 TBD Auty Cup- Canada v USA
June 24 –July 11 Brampton Global T20 Canada
August 15 – 28 Canada (location TBD) ICC Men’s CWC Challenge League; Canada, Denmark,
Malaysia, Qatar, Singapore and Vanuatu
August 18 – 25 USA ICC Under 19 Men’s World Cup qualifier – Canada,
USA, Bermuda, Argentina
Sept 1 – 7 Canada (Location TBD) CC Cricket Festival/Auty Cup
September 11 -18 USA ICC Americas Women’s T20 WC qualifier: Argentina,
Brazil, Canada, USA
Cricket Canada Update: March 2021!
