This is absolute backwardness. Apart from my total objection to the economic blockade, I thought that sporting contact was exempted. Furthermore, this competition has nothing to do with the US, except for the fact that the sponsor, Mr. Stanford, is a citizen of that country.
Such heavy-handedness will do nothing to assist the image of the US, not only in the West Indies, but also through the cricketing world.

That's a real disappointment for Cuba, after all that investment and training so hard. If the decision doesn't get overturned they at least ought to be included in the Americas Division 3 Championship in Buenos Aires in February, to give their team some international exposure.

This is awfully bad news, Sports and Politics should remain miles apart.

pathetic!

Shocking but not unexpected. USA was conceived as the home of freedom by its "sons of liberty" but has become what those pioneers fought against, a totalitarian state.

Sad situation..Maybe the Test nations and other cricket playing nations can invite the Cuban team to those countries or have some kind of exchange program to promote the sport in Cuba..

I agree Sports and Politics should not mix, however, Castro uses sports to prop up the "triumph" of his revolution. I happen to be Cuban, and would have loved to see my fellow countrymen participate, and later defect. This is a tough, personal issue for me. I live in Brasil and was happy to see the Pan Am games, the medals, and the defections. One should note the Cuban delegation was whisked away in the dead of night under guard for "their protection" but the truth is it was to prevent more athletes from abandoning the delegation. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain they are the last country that treats their athletes in this matter, preventing them from freely moving about. Just think of this: You don't see athletes from other nations defecting in the numbers you see from Cuba.

like America's in the position to talk about tyranny

Another reason how U.S. politics interferes with other worldly events, this time with sport. Sad

The biggest irony here is that in 2005 when the first World Baseball Classic (not to be confused with the 70 year old Baseball World Cup) was staged in conjunction with Major League Baseball, Cuba was represented. Granted the Cuban team was staffed by already defected major and minor leaguers, but they were playing under the Cuban flag and were very proud to be the runners-up. I suppose the financial clout of MLB vs Stanford and it being baseball vs cricket carries more weight, but there really is no good reason why the State department should enforce this absurd double standard. I hope Mr. Stanford's legal team will point this out as they work to get a genuine Cuban national cricket team permission to play in the Stanford 20/20. Maybe not in 2008, but hopefully in 2009 and beyond, as one more barrier to political normalization and Cuba's eventual rehabilitation is broken down.

Omar, there IS a sporting exemption but it only applies to US sportsmen competing in Cuban-hosted events. The "problem" here is that Stanford is a US citizen seeking to inject cash into Cuban sport. The irony of a US regime which has sacrificed billions of dollars and countless lives in its quest to make the world safe for free market capitalism telling one of its citizens what he can and can't do with his money is rather rich, not to say pungent. Perhaps Stanford could nominally relinquish control of this tournament in future and run it via a holding company based in the Caribbean to prevent this situation arising again?

Actually Steven Davies-Morris, the Cuban team in the World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an actual team from Cuba and not a team of Cuban defectors. Cuba was initally denied participation in the WBC but then Puerto Rico threatened to pull out as co-hosts and the International Olympic Committee hinted that the move would adversely affect all future applications by US cities to host the Olympics. That pressure forced the US government to back down and allow Cuba to participate. Unfortunately cricket means little or nothing to the US government, so even if say the USVI threatened some action it would achieve nothing and the ICC only just recently achieved IOC recognition so at the time at least the IOC wouldn't have gotten involved to ensure fairness. Since Cuba was all prepared I would hope that they play some twenty20 matches against some the Stanford teams (e.g. Jamaica and Bahamas) outside of the tournament itself.