In what comes as a welcome move to the game, cricket has been added to a shortlist of nine sports for potential inclusion at the Los Angeles 2028 games. Cricket will be competing for a spot at the marquee event alongside eight other sports, including baseball/softball, flag football, lacrosse, break dancing, karate, kickboxing, squash and motorsport.
The Los Angeles Games organising committee had asked the International Cricket Council to make their case for the same last month. While the exact date for the ICC presentation is yet to be decided, a final call on the sport’s inclusion is likely to be made when the International Olympic Committee is scheduled to meet in Mumbai around the same time next year.
Earlier this year, the IOC had made a commitment to expand its programmes and later came up with a means to evaluate “potential new sports” to try and check if they would fit in the scheme of things for the LA28 Games.
There is no limitation on the number of new sports the IOC can add. However, all those vying for a spot must fulfill the list of six criteria for inclusion.
Women’s cricket at the ongoing Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022 has been received well, with eight teams – Australia, England, India, South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan, Barbados and Sri Lanka – competing at the event.
Australia, India, hosts England and New Zealand have already been confirmed as the two semi-finalists, with the last two Group B games to be played on August 4. The Gold (final) and Bronze medal will be played on August 7, after the two semi-finals on August 6.
This is the first time that cricket has been featured in Commonwealth Games since the 1998 event in Kuala Lumpur, wherein just the men’s cricket had been played in the ODI format. As for the Olympics, however, any sporting discipline needs to feature both male and female athletes.
The ongoing success at CWG 2022 gives the ICC enough self-belief for a case at the LA28 Games.
“We’ve seen from the Commonwealth Games how much the world’s best players have enjoyed playing in front of big crowds and what I’m sure will be large TV audiences,”
ICC DEO Geoff Allardice was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo on August 4.
“We have declared our ambition to be involved in the Olympic Games. We are assisting the LA 2028 organisers and providing any information will help their assessment of different sports with regards to addition to the Olympic programme. But, at this stage, a decision is due next year,”
he said last week.
“Being in multi-sport games, whether it is the Commonwealth Games or the Asian Games or the African Games, putting cricket into these multisport events is good for the growth of our game.
One, it gives a lot of our member countries a seat at the top table for sporting organisations within their country. Two, the coverage of these games reaches new audiences that may not be traditional cricket audiences.”
