USA Cricket board alleged to racial discrimination by former contractor

An ex contract employee has filed a fresh lawsuit at federal court against the USA Cricket board. The complainant, Kirk Greaves has sought damages to attune USD 2 million claiming racial discrimination in employement practices from the cricket board. 

Onboarded as an Operations manager (contract) in March 2021 on a four month probationary period, Greaves had a salary of  USD 5,000 per month which increased by another 1500  by the time when he was terminated in the first week of April 2022. Greaves purported a “toxic work environment, unfair employment practices, wage disparity and discrimination” in his lawsuit and further alleges that a budget reserved for his full time conversion was used as a source for hike in offer for a white employee. 

Greaves further stated that a termination letter was sent to him by the Director of Cricket Operations Richard Done which was ‘pursuant’ to the decision of the Cricket Committee. However, Greaves goes on to contradict himself by exhibiting an email from Srini Salver, a member of the cricket committee, which stated “"your termination was never recommended by the Cricket Committee in any board meeting but was instead discussed during a conversation about budgets."

USA Cricket has brazenly denied all of Greaves’ accusations and is preparing for a legal battle. “USA Cricket is aware of various details of a lawsuit being brought by a former contractor against USA Cricket. The individual is one of a number of contractors previously engaged by USA Cricket whose contracts were recently not renewed. All allegations in the lawsuit are entirely false and without merit, and USA Cricket denies and will aggressively defend against them. The matter is currently in the hands of USA Cricket's lawyers. We look forward to the case being dismissed in due course and will not be making any further comment at this time," said a USA Cricket spokesperson.

Meanwhile, there was some relief for the board and its officials later in the day with both of their directors, Venu Pisike and Srini Salver set to withdraw their year-old lawsuit against five office bearers of the board and the CEO at that time.  Pisike and Salver filed the litigation over a constitutional amendment to expel a clause that permitted members to vote in elections only after a year they have served as a member. The amendment was passed with a simple majority. However, plaintiffs argued it required at least 67% of the votes to banish the clause. 

The lawsuit had also questioned the legitimacy of the reappointment of Paraag Marathe as independent director and chairman, reporting him as ‘improper’ and ‘premature’. The plaintiffs had claimed that Paraag was selected as an Independent Director by the Board of Directors prior to the election of new members to the Board of Directors which should have been held in late 2020.