ZURICH, CMC – Cricket looks set to return to the Olympic Games after more than a century.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced yesterday that it was one of five sports that have been proposed for inclusion at the Games in the American city of Los Angeles in five years’ time.
The proposal is to include the so-called “gentleman’s game”, as well as baseball-softball, flag football (a limited-contact version of American football), lacrosse, and squash, a statement from the organisers indicated. Following its discussion of the LA28 proposal, the Olympic Programme Commission of the IOC will issue a recommendation to the IOC Executive Board, which will present the proposal to the 141st IOC Session from October 15 to 17 in Mumbai, India, coincidentally where the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 is taking place.
“The Los Angeles 2028 Olympics’ recommendation for cricket inclusion at the Games is a monumental step that could see more significant opportunities for cricket and the Caribbean community,” Cricket West Indies president, Dr Kishore Shallow said in a statement. “I share my International Cricket Council (ICC) colleagues’ enthusiasm about this progress and commend all stakeholders for advancing this ambition.”
If approved, the final LA28 event programme and number of athlete quotas in the additional sports will be finalised in the future.
Three of the five proposed sports, including cricket, have previously been contested at the Olympics, but unlike its only previous appearance at the 1900 Games in Paris, France, when a team from Britain beat a team representing the hosts, it will not be contested as a two innings-a-side competition. The proposed format for cricket is Twenty20, one of the sport’s newest and most spectator-friendly versions, with media reports indicating that the sport’s world gorverning body recommended a six-team tournament for both men and women to the LA28 organising committee. It was reported that the participating teams will comprise the top-six ranked sides in the ICC’s men’s and women’s T20 rankings on a cut-off date, similar to the process used to determine the teams when cricket made its return after 24 years to the Commonwealth Games last year in the British city of Birmingham.
It was also reported that the ICC proposed T20s after both LA28 and the IOC emphasised the format must be one that featured a world championship (which ruled out the T10 or Hundred format), had a compact duration (which ruled out 50 overs-a-side One-day Internationals), and had significant spectator interest.
ICC president Greg Barclay welcomed the decision to propose cricket.
“We are delighted that LA28 have recommended cricket for inclusion in the Olympics,” he said. “Whilst this is not the final decision, it is a very significant landmark towards seeing cricket at the Olympics for the first time in more than a century.
“I’d like to thank LA28 for their support during the new sport evaluation process over the last two years, and we look forward to the final decision being taken at the IOC Session, in India, during the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup next week.”
Cricket, which has enormous global appeal, has made recent appearances in other multi-nation, multi-sport events.
The sport made its debut at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where three men’s sides from the Caribbean played in a 16-team tournament under the One-day, 50 overs-a-side format, which was won by South Africa.
Barbados, under Philo Wallace, finished sixth and was the highest placed of the three Caribbean sides, Antigua & Barbuda led by Dave Joseph were eighth, and Jamaica captained by Jimmy Adams was 10th.
When cricket returned to the Commonwealth Games last year, there was no men’s competition, and only the top eight women’s teams in the ICC Rankings under the T20 format played, with reigning CWI T20 Blaze champions at the time, Barbados taking the slot allocated to West Indies.
The sport has also featured in the 2010 and 2014 editions of the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, and Incheon, South Korea, respectively, and it was also part of the events in the recently-concluded 19th edition in the Chinese city of Hangzhou, where India won gold in both the men’s and women’s tournaments.
Of the other sports, only squash and flag-football have never featured in the Olympics previously, and LA28 organisers said they “were willing to challenge the status quo and think differently about what’s possible”.
“LA28’s proposed sports ignite the imagination on the field of play and drive culture off it,” LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman said. “They’re relevant, innovative, and community-based, played in backyards, schoolyards, community centres, stadiums, and parks across the U.S. and the globe.
“They will bring new athletes to the Games, engage diverse fanbases and expand the Games’ presence in digital spaces, further amplifying LA28’s mission to deliver an unparalleled experience.”
